Energy, culture and vibrancy are set to be brought to the streets of the city due to a brand new £200,000 fund.
Following recent announcements from central Government that socially distanced live performances are now allowed, Liverpool City Council and Arts Council England are launching a £200,000 pilot project to fund performing and visual art in the streets of Liverpool.
This is the next phase of the Liverpool Without Walls project which began in June by supporting the hospitality sector to reimagine eating outdoors. This latest strand of the project will look at how the city’s world-famous cultural offer can come out of the venues, galleries and performance spaces the city boasts, and turn the streets into a stage.
The fund will support artists and organisations to create work which can be presented within the city centre over the coming months – with grants of up to £5,000 on offer.
The aim is to help those who apply to look at new ways of making content, while also creating more reasons to encourage local and regional audiences back into the city centre.
The fund is available for organisations and individuals who are based in Liverpool, and the application form can be found here.
Liverpool’s Deputy Mayor and Cabinet Member for culture, tourism and events, Councillor Wendy Simon, said:
“The cultural and arts sector has been hit as hard as anyone by this crisis. Naturally our long term aim is to help organisations reopen their venues safely, but in the meantime we wanted to find a way for our artistic community to create and perform elsewhere.
“By giving artists and performers a lifeline to create new work, while also attracting people into the city centre again, this project is a real win-win.”
Director of Culture for Liverpool Claire McColgan, said:
“When lockdown started, our extraordinary culture sector moved with speed and imagination to create brilliant work which could be shared digitally.
“This fund has been created to once again tap into their ingenuity and to come up with ideas for how to reimagine their artforms on the streets of Liverpool.
“We are renowned for producing brilliant outdoor performance in this city, so I am excited to see what the sector come up with.”
Applications will be assessed on a first come first served basis and the fund will remain open until all the money has been
allocated. Visit www.cultureliverpool.co.uk/without-walls-fund for more information.
