It’s been a busy couple of weeks at Hidden Liverpool HQ as we’ve been preparing for our third and final exhibition, ‘Future City’. Following on from previous work such as our ‘People’s City’ and ‘People’s History’ exhibition taking place at the School for the Blind on Hardman Street and The Colonnades, Albert Dock respectively.

If you’ve been involved or come to see us, you’ll know we were collecting stories for our Memory Bank. We had a fantastic response with many visitors pinning up their memories at our exhibitions and even using our Memory Bank phone line to record a message about a particular place. During our previous exhibition at the Albert Dock we had over 2000 visitors through our doors to view photographs and discover people’s memories of the empty and under-used buildings in Liverpool. We also had a great response from the press with both the Liverpool Echo and The Guardian featuring our work, which raised our profile considerably. We’ve since heard from new volunteers interested in our project and offering to work with us, and we wouldn’t be able to carry out our events without such help.

Lately we’ve been focusing on our upcoming exhibition, ‘Future City’ which will feature work contributed by 11 Merseyside schools such as St Francis of Assisi Academy, St Edwards, South Sefton College and Belvedere Academy. Having worked with architects from the PLACED team, a host of Y12s & Y13s have worked on briefs set by Liverpool businesses such as Leaf and FACT in order to propose ideas for the empty buildings and spaces around us. The students have done a great job, contributing to our exhibition whilst also studying for upcoming exams!

We’re also very happy to be featuring photographer Andrew Brooks’ new Liverpool work for his ‘Secret Cities’ project with Andy Brydon. Andrew’s stunning images will provide another angle to the thoughts behind ‘Future City’. We hope the exhibition will be a thought provoking starting point for conversation, taking into account ideas and plans for the future of Liverpool’s empty buildings and what could happen to them.

This week we’ve been busy planning the exhibition design, which will again take place at Unit C7, The Colonnades, at the Albert Dock. We’ll be kicking off proceedings with a Breakfast Launch on Monday 16^th June from 9.30am – 11am. Email s if you want to get on the guest list.

The exhibition will run until Friday 27^th June, also encompassing our Dragon’s Den style pitch meeting for pupils who have worked on a bid for the building, put to our distinguished judges, who have many years’ experience within the world of architecture. A press release has now been sent out, the flyers have come back from the printers and we’re out and about in Liverpool building up some promotion for ‘Future City’, so do look out for information in your local coffee shop! We’ve also been arranging our Breakfast Launch and have taken on the team at Siren, to help us out on the day. We’re really looking forward to working with the team.

So, there’s a lot left to do! We’re approaching the time when display panels and models will begin to be installed, and our exhibition designer Mark, will turn his ideas to magic! Clare is busy updating our social media platforms and liaising with press, Will is doing all things website and administrating and as for our Project Manager Carolyn, she’s pulling it all together! We look forward to our opening, and we hope you can make it to add your thoughts to the conversation!

Future City, Monday 16^th June – Friday 27^th June.

Unit C7, The Colonnades, Albert Dock. (Tate side)

FREE, Open Daily 11am – 6pm (closed 19^th June)