Manchester + Liverpool









Opening nights at CUBE, RENEW and SITE

"Shrinking Cities" Exhibitions
CUBE, Manchester, 
RENEW Rooms and Site Art Gallery, Liverpool
November 17, 2007 - January 26, 2008


Manchester/Liverpool is one of the project’s six regions of research and stands as an example of shrinking as a result of de-industrialization. Since the 1960s, the cities of Manchester and Liverpool have lost half their population. At the low point of the development, in the 1980s, large parts of the inner cities were abandoned. The city centers have meanwhile been revived, but many districts have not had a share in these up-valuation processes and still suffer from high unemployment rates, loss of population, and untenanted buildings. The processes of growth and shrinking now playing out in parallel here are experienced as spatial polarization.


The international analysis was shown in the CUBE – Centre for the Urban Built Environment – in Manchester. In addition, an installation on the mechanisms of branding by the artists group Sans Facon was shown in the city area.


The Site Gallery in the former Albert Docks, which is operated by Liverpool John Moores University, showed the second part of the exhibition, “Shrinking Cities – Interventions”. In parallel to the exhibitions, the German-British artists group What-If, already a prizewinner in the Shrinking Cities competition, installed two containers in the districts of Toxteth and Dingle in which discussions, film screenings, etc. were held and that became a site of encounter.


The third exhibition site – the RENEW Rooms of the RIBA in Liverpool – focused on the theme of spatial polarization, which is especially acute in the region, with works on Manchester, Liverpool, and Detroit, some of them newly created.

Numerous events accompanied the exhibitions, including exhibition talks, discussions, radio and Internet television broadcasts, film screenings in the exhibitions, and a film series in an art house movie theater. The program of events was staged in collaboration with the Tate Liverpool, FACT Liverpool, and Urbis Manchester. The exhibitions and accompanying program in Manchester and Liverpool drew about 4,500 visitors.

www.cube.org.uk

www.renew.co.uk


Side programme in January 2008 /// January 12, 2008, 6–8 p.m.
Independent Film at the Dock
Site Art Gallery
Curated by Sam Pepper
To celebrate the launch of the capital of culture, The Albert Dock Company presents a series of short films originating from Liverpool at Sites Biennial Cinema. In partnership with local creative agencies Sam Pepper curates a collection of short films produced by Merseyside’s independent film makers.


January 16, 2008, 6-8 p.m.
Sonic Graffiti

RENEW Rooms, Liverpool
Concept by: Peter Appleton (Reader in Creative Technology, JMU School of Art and Design).
The mobile phone will be used as a recording tool – for sounds or comment about the city. Invitations will be made to contribute through our answering system to a repository of voices and urban noise. Within a spatial sound installation these sounds will be randomly distributed forming an immersive and updating narrative and ambient urban backdrop. This archive will then be made available as a digital resource.


January 18, 2008, 7-10 p.m.
“L8ter” film screening

OUTPOST Dingle, Park Street, Liverpool
4 documentaries produced by Toxteth TV. More info: www.out-post.info, www.toxteth.tv


January 19-24, 2008
Shrinking Cities Film

Screenings at Picturehouse at FACT, Liverpool
While the subject of shrinking cities was tabooed for many years in the fields dealing with urban development, since 1945 it has been treated in a variety of ways on film. Since 1990, shrinking cities have been the distinctive framework of the plots in the new German films set in eastern Germany. A selection of new German films will be shown at the Picturehouse at FACT in Liverpool. www.picturehouses.co.uk. With the kind support of the Goethe Institute, Manchester.

Programme:
Sat, Jan 19, 2008, 12.30 p.m.
Lichter
Director Hans-Christian Schmid, colour, 105 min., 2003

Sat, Jan 19, 2008, 2.30 p.m.
Halbe Treppe/ Grill Point
Director Andreas Dresen, colour, 107 min., 2001

Sun, Jan 20, 2008, 12.30 p.m.
Vergiss Amerika
Director Vanessa Jopp, colour, 90 min., 2000

Sun, Jan 20, 2008, 2.30 p.m.
Neben der Zeit/ Outside Time
Director Andreas Kleinert, colour, 107 min, 1995

Thurs, Jan 24, 2008, 6.30 p.m.
Neustadt (Stau – der Stand der Dinge)/ Neustadt Jammed - the Status Quo Director Thomas Heise, colour, 90 min., 2000


January 22, 2008, 6-8 p-m.
Creating Images

RENEW Rooms
Film screenings presenting strategies for action by image production through architecture, art and music: Post Barnsley by squint opera, Alsop Architects; Come Unto Me – The faces of Tyree Guyton by Nicole Cattell; The Sound of Two Cities by Elliot Eastwick

January, 23, 2008, 6-8 p.m.
Urban regeneration policies

RENEW Rooms, Liverpool
Discussion with Anna Minton (Moderation), Matthias Bernt (Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig), Anne Power (London School of Economics), Michael Simon (City of Liverpool, Community Development), David Rudlin (URBED)
The participants will discuss the concepts of urban regeneration policies in Germany and Great Britain  - Stadtumbau Ost, Socially Integrative City versus pathfinder, urban task force, etc. - subject the efforts made and successes achieved by Manchester and Liverpool with respect to urban regeneration to critique, and will pose the legitimate question as to its social compatibility. With the kind support of the Goethe Institute, Manchester.

January 24, 2008, 2-3 p.m.
FACT broadcast: Change & The City

Site Art Gallery, Liverpool
tenantspin will be continuing its exploration of urban regeneration schemes against the backdrop of the International touring exhibition Shrinking Cities.  North Liverpool is currently home to Europe's largest regeneration site while the City Centre changes with every passing month as capital developments and consumer led regeneration schemes begin to shape a new future for the city.  We invite you to join the discussion with our panel of experts ranging for Urban planners to regeneration officials and community members.