Creative Thinking at LJMU

Creative thinking.

New ways of working with the arts and cultural sector.

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LJMU leads the way among UK universities with this far-sighted and enriching programme of cultural and artistic engagement for its students.

It’s a truly life-changing opportunity for every student to get involved in the arts.

Darren Henley, Chief Executive, Arts Council England and LJMU Honorary Fellow

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Liverpool John Moores University can trace its roots back to 1823 and the establishment of the Liverpool Mechanics School of Art, which opened up educational opportunities to the working people of Liverpool. Given this heritage, it’s not surprising that LJMU has long recognised and championed art and culture as a means of enriching not just lives of our students and staff but also Liverpool’s national and international reputation.

Our partnerships with Liverpool’s arts and cultural sector enhance traditional models of sponsorship and support, advocating an approach where students, staff, academics and arts practitioners are engaged in the process of creating, consuming and investigating culture in all its forms.

ljmu.ac.uk

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Stronger together.

Our choice of cultural partners reflect LJMU’s goal of nurturing critical, curious, creative, tolerant and inventive people within the University community and across the city region.

THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE

ART AND CULTURE

Everyman and Playhouse

Tate Liverpool

Two theatres, one mile apart in Liverpool city centre.

Classic drama and new plays, including ground-breaking Young Everyman Playhouse (YEP).

RIBA Stirling prize-winning theatre venue.

World-leading modern and contemporary art gallery.

Grade 1 listed Albert Dock gallery on Liverpool’s famous Waterfront.

Royal Court Theatre

Largest contemporary art festival in the UK. A free festival of newly commissioned contemporary art work from around the world.

Attracts over 600,000 visitors to the city every two years.

Comedies, musicals and new plays. £12million recently refurbished theatre.

MUSIC Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra UK’s oldest professional symphony orchestra.

Classical music plus films, rock/pop concerts and comedy.

Grade 2 listed concert hall.

Sound City Annual three day festival of live music and the arts plus music and digital industry conference.

Liverpool Biennial

FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) and Picture house UK’s leading media arts centre.

Cinemas, exhibitions, film and participant-led new media art and creative technology projects.

Royal Institute of British Architects North West Professional body for architects.

Champions better buildings, communities and the environment through architecture.

New exhibition space due to open in Liverpool.

Homotopia UK’s leading LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) arts and cultural festival.

LightNight Liverpool’s one-night arts and culture festival.

Managed by Open Culture, a Community Interest Company.

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Our partnership with LJMU is an excellent example of two likeminded organisations combining expertise and resources to achieve shared aims.

Andrea Nixon, Executive Director, Tate Liverpool

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Working in a fast-paced arts environment is probably the best way to get a sense of the scale and diversity of producing a combined arts festival.

Festival Director Gary Everett commenting on internships available to LJMU students as part of the Homotopia festival.

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A worthwhile investment.

We currently invest in excess of ÂŁ200,000 each year in supporting our arts and cultural partners.

This is money well spent, bringing real benefits to students and staff as well as impacting positively on our local communities.

Here are just some of the benefits secured by LJMU:

| Access to world-class cultural venues and facilities | Exclusive student offers and discounts to

exhibitions, talks and other events

| Stimulating arts and cultural experiences that

complement academic programmes of study

| Enhanced educational and work-related

learning opportunities for our students

| New research and development opportunities Our partners also benefit through:

| Enhanced access to our 21,000+ students in

Liverpool, 70% of whom are under 21 years old

| Vital financial support | Opportunities to work with our expert academic

and research staff

| Access to our campus facilities and rich archives

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To be able to perform somewhere as prestigious as Tate Liverpool is a brilliant opportunity. It enables us to take our work outside the dance studio, so that the public can reflect on our work.

Jessica Whitaker, LJMU Dance Practices student

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Thinking outside the box.

More and more of our students are visiting galleries, attending classical concerts and going to the theatre thanks to the exclusive range of discounts and special offers we have established with our cultural partners. Such experiences are enriching their professional development, self-esteem and wellbeing while also enhancing their appreciation and understanding of the arts.

But the value of our partnerships extends far beyond improved audience figures and free tickets to events and exhibitions.

They are enabling our students to actively participate in the arts and co-create exhibitions. Students are also able to experience first-hand how different organisations and festivals work, so gaining vital professional skills. Such engagement is essential to all sectors and all professions, and will also help ensure that the artists, makers, curators and audiences of the future represent the widest diversity of backgrounds.

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Liverpool and the UK needs creative scientists as much as it needs artists who understand new technologies.

Thanks to our cultural partnerships we are encouraging students and staff to think differently and work across traditional academic boundaries.

Enriching the student experience: | Degree programmes, such as Architecture, Human

Resource Management, Creative Writing, Audio and Broadcast Engineering, and Sports Science, have embedded activities with cultural partners into the academic curriculum

| Exclusive master classes and career workshops

raise awareness of the wide range of careers available in the creative industries

| Work placements and internships help students gain

hands on experience of working in the arts

| ‘Behind the scenes’ access increases understanding of how arts organisations are managed | Opportunities to co-curate exhibitions and events | Invitations to press launches and private views | New student prizes and mentoring opportunities | Exclusive on-campus events

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Student engagement Our four-strong Student Opportunities team works across all campuses, and with all Faculties and Schools, encouraging students to get involved with our cultural partners. LJMU’s cultural offer is well received by students. In 2015, over 300 new undergraduates signed up to become members of YEP (Young Everyman Playhouse), and 700 joined Liverpool Philharmonic’s mailing list during their induction.

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We offer students a ‘behind the scenes’ look at a modern music organisation and show them the multitude of job opportunities that the performing arts industry offers, potentially giving them a valuable headstart to their careers.

Charli Taylor, Head of Corporate and Individual Giving, Liverpool Philharmonic

The art of dance

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The true value of our archives is in the imagination and vision embodied in each of the collections. That’s why it’s fantastic to showcase some of them as part of the Homotopia Festival and inspire visitors with the wonderful images we hold.

Val Stevenson, Head of Academic Services, LJMU Library Services

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Level 5 Dance Practices students choreographed and performed Spazio Perforate (Perforated Space) to mark the opening of Tate Liverpool’s An Imagined Museum exhibition for the national and international media. Their performance was in response to Lucio Fontana’s Spatial Concept 1949-50, which was on display as part of the exhibition. The performance arose as part of English National Ballet’s residency at Tate Liverpool entitled The Dance Within Us, and coincided with their award-winning production of Le Corsaire at Liverpool Empire.

Co-curation Tate Liverpool’s Art Turning Left: How Values Changed Making 1798- 2013 exhibition was sponsored by LJMU and co-curated by PhD student Lynn Wray. The exhibition was highly successful, reaching a total audience of over 8,000 including visitors and participants. Students co-curated an archival display, and also developed and promoted their own events via The Office of Useful Art, a working office within the exhibition.

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LJMU Dance Practices students performed at Tate Livepool.

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Artistic license.

Our cultural partnerships are enabling us to push boundaries through cutting-edge courses and high impact research.

Joint academic posts We have established ‘embedded academic posts’ with Tate Liverpool, Liverpool Biennial, FACT (The Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) and the Royal Institute of British Architects North West. These posts enable senior academics to contribute to the research strategies of both the University and their host institution, including generating collaborative research income and enhancing existing partnerships. Students also benefit thanks to new work-based learning and research opportunities.

Legal matters The School of Law worked closely with Homotopia to stage a preview of the April Ashley exhibition at the University, enabling law students to explore a range of legal developments relating to the Trans, Lesbian and Gay community. The exhibition ran at the Museum of Liverpool from 2013 until March 2015, recording 1 million visitors.

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The significance of the April Ashley exhibition cannot be over emphasised. It continues to educate and galvanise scores of visitors, and its impact on transpeople and their allies will be felt for years to come.

Senior Lecturer in History, Dr Emma Vickers

Green production LJMU worked with YEP (Young Everyman Playhouse) on their production of The Environmentalists to help them achieve their goal of becoming the first ever carbonneutral play. Scientists from the University calculated carbon emissions arising from staff and supporter activities and worked with the theatre to help them reduce their carbon footprint for the run of the play.

The winners of the John Moores Painting Prize (China) complete a residency at LJMU.

John Moores Painting Prize (China) LJMU collaborates with the College of Fine Arts, Shanghai University on the biennial John Moores Painting Prize (China) competition, named after the first Chancellor of LJMU. The UK prize, which is held at the Walker Gallery in Liverpool, is a major component of the city’s Biennial contemporary arts programme. The winning Chinese artists travel to Liverpool and complete a month-long residency at the School of Art and Design, developing new works inspired by Liverpool and meeting artists in the city. Their work is exhibited at the School and at the Walker to coincide with the opening of the Liverpool Biennial and the John Moores Painting Prize UK.

Making Minecraft real Thanks to a unique joint appointment between FACT, and the School of Art and Design, the popular fantasy game Minecraft has been transformed into a powerful learning tool. Cloudmaker: Making Minecraft Real was led by Dr Mark Wright, who is Director of FACTLab and co-director of LJMU’s Contemporary Art Lab. Using child-friendly language, Cloudmaker helps young people develop skills in coding, programming, co-design and collaboration. The project resulted in a new collaboration between FACT and the Museum of Science and Industry (Manchester) exploring physical and digital making, and the interaction between arts and science.

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Setting the scene.

Liverpool’s arts and cultural organisations play a vital role in how the city and the University are perceived by others in the UK and around the world. Cultural partnerships reinforce our reputation as a university where ideas and creative thinking can flourish, positioning LJMU – and Liverpool – as an attractive and distinctive place to work, study and socialise.

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The partnership helps sustain and develop our acclaimed artistic programme, build a strong relationship with the students and staff of LJMU, and helps both the theatres and the University achieve our shared goal of nurturing and retaining talent.

Deborah Aydon, Everyman and Playhouse Executive Director

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Roscoe Lectures

The spoken word

Professional master class

The Philharmonic Hall has proved to be a popular venue for our prestigious Roscoe Lectures, one of Britain’s largest public lecture series. The talk by the internationally acclaimed writer of children’s fiction Michael Morpurgo OBE for example was attended by around 1,700 people.

Our Creative Writing Department held its first event at Tate Liverpool, when acclaimed author and Oxford Professor of Poetry, Simon Armitage gave a sold out reading exploring aspects of the An Imagined Museum exhibition. Tate also hosted and chaired a debate with Royal Academy Director, critic and TV presenter Tim Marlow, organised in partnership with LJMU and The Double Negative online arts and culture magazine.

In celebration of the 175th anniversary of the Liverpool Philharmonic, Classic FM broadcast a day’s programmes from LJMU’s Redmonds Building radio studio. After his programme, broadcaster and journalist John Suchet met over 50 journalism students to talk about his 40-year career.

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Art for all.

We believe that everyone should have equal access to a rich cultural education and the opportunity to live a creative life, and so do our cultural partners.

We know that the people most likely to engage with the arts and culture come from a narrow social, economic, ethnic and educated demographic that is not representative of either Liverpool or the wider UK population.

As a modern civic university, LJMU wants to bridge the participation gap and enable the full range of voices, talent and experiences to engage with, and influence Liverpool’s dynamic cultural sector.

We currently recruit around 44% of students from Merseyside, which includes some of the most economically deprived local authorities in the country, and we are rightly proud of our longstanding record of reaching out to and recruiting students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

By investing in our cultural partners, we can directly support their innovative outreach programmes, which complement LJMU’s extensive widening participation activities with 300+ primary and secondary schools and colleges across Merseyside and beyond.

Working together, we can raise aspirations and inspire future generations to achieve more than they ever thought possible.

City festival Alongside direct financial support for LightNight, the University’s contribution to the Festival is extensive.

In 2015, visitors were able to visit György Kepes, The New Landscape exhibition plus degree shows by creative writing, drama, film, journalism and media production students.

Staff and students from Astrophysics, FaceLab, Open Labs, Maritime Studies and the Formula Student Racing Team also staged a range of user-friendly, entertaining and informative activities.

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Homotopia staged exhibitions using materials from LJMU’s Special Collections and Archives, including England’s Dreaming: The Jon Savage Archive, the largest single collection of Punk-related material in the world, plus artefacts relating to musician Poly Styrene (pictured right).

Opening up the archives Thanks to our partnership with Homotopia, LJMU’s Special Collections and Archives Department has been able to open up the University’s unique and sometimes surprising resources to the general public.

Two exhibitions were staged in 2013: England’s Erotic Dream used materials from the Jon Savage Archive, focusing a queer gaze on London’s early punk scene, while Germ Free Adolescents, documented the life and music of Poly Styrene, a revolutionary musical figure who challenged dominant definitions of femininity.

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Liverpool John Moores University. April 2016. Written, designed and produced by LJMU Marketing and Corporate Communications.

For more information about LJMU and our arts and cultural partnerships, email: communications@ljmu.ac.uk visit: ljmu.ac.uk

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