The Exhibitions
Over the course of the project, Hidden Liverpool delivered three exhibitions exploring our city’s empty buildings. The People's City - Photography Competition and Exhibition ran in November 2013 and displayed a range of striking photographs of empty buildings and spaces across the city. The images were selected via a public competition featuring amateurs, under 18's as well as professional’s entries, which were judged by industry professionals including the Open Eye Gallery. Over 600 people visited the pop up exhibition held for ten days in the old School for the Blind on Hardman St, now being developed by Hope St Hotel. The People’s History exhibition ran at the Albert Dock for two weeks in April, presenting people’s memories bringing to life some of Liverpool’s public buildings, which now stand empty. The exhibition featured images, memorabilia and audio interviews of fascinating, funny and touching stories gathered by the Hidden Liverpool team. We also invited local campaigns and friends groups who are championing the resurrection of some of the cities empty public buildings to contribute including Save the Futurist Cinema in Lime St, Jewel on the Hill the former Everton Library and Save Woolton Pool where John Lennon learnt to swim! An incredible 2400 visitors from across the UK and worldwide visited the exhibition over Easter. Future City Our final exhibition which took place in June looked to the future, exploring residents' views on the potential of our empty buildings. The exhibition featured work produced by Merseyside sixth form students and Liverpool John Moores University architecture students with the help of various architects from the Placed team. Holly Lodge School went on to be overall winners of the proposals with their pitch on Welsh Church in Toxteth.