Taking place across the city’s public transport, parks and urban spaces, Visible Virals will engage thousands of people and spread across the city during 2008.

Transient in nature, and light touch, the artworks will infiltrate public spaces and infrastructures in the city, building in magnitude and inviting participation. Visible Virals is a co-commission between Liverpool Biennial and Liverpool Culture Company.

Urban Spaces

For their project titled One Year in Liverpool, Stockholm artists collective AAPE are investigating the concept of ‘the average Liverpudlian’ through their life, behaviour and consumer habits. The project takes its basis from statistics, gradually feeding unusual facts into the public realm over the year and inviting people in the city to provide information about themselves.

The project will manifest itself in a series of installations that will spread through unexpected locations in the city centre to reveal the bigger picture. AAPE are Amber Morrison, Alexander Kurtlandsky, Peter Genberg and Eric Ericsson.

The project launched in January 2008, and there are now artworks appearing in public places across the city Visit the project website and participate in the project by adding your statistics!

Transport & Parks

Artist Nils Norman is exploring the city’s transport systems and green spaces and will reveal the many hidden curiosities, activities and communities of Liverpool’s parks. Working with the Liverpool Parks & Environment Department, the Park Rangers and Merseytravel, he will make Liverpool’s unique and often little known parks highly visible by creating an experience of discovery for the city traveller.

The Transport & Parks Virals project launches in May 2008.

Working in partnership with Greenbank Sports Academy, the Disability Sports Festival will both widen access and deliver an increased level of participation in sport and physical activity and is taking place throughout the year. 

The festival will see a number of international, national and regional disability events hosted atGreenbank Sports Academy.

You can either just sit back and enjoy the events, or, there is the fantastic opportunity to participate as well. There will be a programme of sports taster sessions that will encourage disabled people, their families and their assistants, to get active and get involved in sport.

It is hoped that 1,000 people will be attracted to take part over the year-long festival with events likeWheelchair Basketball and table tennis.

A range of sports taster sessions aimed at promoting increased sports participation amongst disabled people their families and their carers.

Primarily focussed on the Greenbank sports academy, the festival offers a varietyof taster sessions. No past experience required.

Digital Depatures

In 2008 the Northwest will become Europe’s shining light for micro-budget filmmaking with an ambitiousplan to produce three feature-length films in Liverpool.

Northwest Vision + Media, together with its partners the Liverpool Culture Company, the UK Film Council and the BBC, invited writers, producers and directors from the city and across the broader Northwest to get involved in the ground-breaking Digital Departures project. Over 150 filmmaking teams applied, with 12 making it to the final shortlist. Of these projects, three will eventually be green lit for production.

Guided throughout by experienced industry professionals, each of the three Digital Departures films will have a budget of £250,000, to be fully financed by the partners. They will be developed, shot and post-produced in Liverpool and will premiere in the city in the autumn of 2008.

The films will then be distributed nationally and internationally across a variety of digital platforms including the UK’s rapidly-expanding Digital Screen Network. The BBC is taking UK broadcast TV rights. Digital Departures will also ensure that film plays a central role in the Capital of Culture celebrations. It will also unearth some outstanding talent, deliver great films and become a dynamic model of micro budget production that Liverpool can export across the world.

Co-commissioned by the Liverpool Culture Company for Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008.

Cities on the Edge

Cities on the Edge is a unique partnership of six European cities: Liverpool, England; Bremen, Germany; Gdansk, Poland; Istanbul, Turkey; Marseilles, France; Naples, Italy.

The Cities on the Edge' programme will allow Liverpool to welcome hundreds of European artists, professionals, and young people to share and exchange ideas and experiences throughout 2008.

At Liverpool's invitation, all twelve cities have come together in Liverpool's European Capital of Culture year to examine their roles as historic ports. The cities all share a common sense of themselves as city states, as islands with their national territories.

Equally, they are all characterised by a critical edge;  a rare combination of individualism with a strong sense of community; a passion for football; a strong reputation for creativity; and a long and vivid history. They are also essential to the definition of the cultural identity of their respective countries, but don't always feel loved or understood by their countrymen.

City Of Song

Generation 21

Generation 21 invites Liverpool young people to work with architects, health professionals, teachers, designers & other creative collaborators to envision a new Liverpool for the 21st century.

Children and young people will become city planners as they create designs for healthy buildings andhealthy spaces - their visions, their dreams, their designs for a healthier Liverpool and a city that makes you feel good.

Taking as its stimulus the innovations of Leonardo Da Vinci; his blueprints for flight, inventions and the human body, and the forward thinking of Le Corbusier. Generation 21 designs and installations will form the centre piece of a national Creative Learning Networks conference in the new Kings Dock Arena in the autumn of 2008. The whole process will be digitally documented, with a film premiere in December 08.

Cheshire is aiming to be 'Capital of Horticulture' in 2008!

Cheshire’s Year of Gardens 08 is a full 12 months of events and animation in Cheshire, celebrating the established gardens as well as exploring the green spaces around the region and enjoying all things garden related.

That’s because Cheshire has more gardens open to the public than anywhere else in the UK, many of international importance, others are simply the result of an urge to create a beautiful corner of the landscape in one of the most indulgent region’s in the country.

From a dazzling display of flowers, to art, fireworks and music, it’s not only the bees that are buzzing about Cheshire's gardens.

If you like the sound of gritty fusion of Delta Blues and North American rhythms come to the Bluecoat'sPerformance Space on Wednesday 19 March, 2008 at 8pm.

Justin Adams will be perfroming with Juldeh Camara. Justin Adams has sometimes been referred to as the British Ry Cooder. He co-wrote The Robert Plant album Mighty Rearranger released to rave reviews and has played guitar with Robert's band the Strange Sensation around the world.

Here he joins forces with Gambian master musician Juldeh Camara – a regular collaborator with Robert Plant and Tinariwen - and percussionist Salah Dawson Miller who has played with an extraordinary array of artists including Phillip Glass and Dr John.

This eclectic mix of music has been nominated for the Best Album in the Culture Crossing category for the BBC World Music Awards and their record, Soul Science, has been receiving great acclaim from all quarters.

Liverpool will be in full bloom this year with Jyll Bradly's Fragrant project. Visual Artist Jyll Bradley will be Artist in Residence within Liverpool Botanical Collection. Jyll will be making a series of high profile interventions throughout 2008, culminating in September with the launch of an artist’s book and public art billboard sequence reflecting the extraordinary narratives of this unique, historic collection.

The Liverpool Botanical Collection is one of the largest plant collections in UK municipal ownership and was the original vision of one of Liverpool’s key figures, William Roscoe (1753-1831).

In May 2008 a garden conceived by Jyll working in collaboration with Liverpool City Council Parks and Environment Department will show as part of the Chelsea Flower Show. It will then tour to Tatton Park and Southport Flower Shows, as well as a city centre venue. The garden will celebrate the spirit of William Roscoe and those who work with the Collection today.

Developed and produced in collaboration with London Artists Projects. Curated in association with the Bluecoat.

Commissioned by the Liverpool Culture Company for Liverpool European Capital of Culture 2008.