Liverpool Biennial 2012: The Unexpected Guest

Location: Gallery 1 / Gallery 2 / Atrium

Cost: FREE Entry

The Unexpected Guest is part of Liverpool Biennial. It is an exhibition that brings over 60 artists together across 19 sites in the City including galleries, museums and the public realm.

The exhibition begins with the idea of hospitality. Hospitality is the welcome we extend to others, as well as a metaphor encompassing issues of the body, territory, politics and commerce. In an age of unprecedented movement between both people and knowledge, different cultures of hospitality confront one another as never before.

Whilst each artist has chosen to respond differently to this idea, at the heart of the exhibition at FACT is each artist's desire to critique social and political hierarchies and to re-imagine hidden or untold histories. Spanning collaborative and cross-disciplinary practices, the works study and address contemporary cultures of exchange, violence, and the romance we might feel for a world that seems to have adopted an increasingly inhospitable façade. 

http://liverpoolbiennial.co.uk/

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As part of The Unexpected Guest, FACT and Liverpool Biennial present one of the most ambitious programmes of contemporary artist films ever seen in Liverpool, all of which are inspired by the Biennial's theme of Hospitality.

Through a series of weekly film screenings, Q&A sessions and film forums, we present a survey of contemporary practice in artist film and video focusing on the recent propensity of artists to work in the medium to feature-length format.

Screenings

19 September
The Forgotten Space (15)
Allan Sekula & Noel Birch
From underpaid truck drivers in LA to Filipino maids in China, this film highlights the people whose role in the global economy goes largely undocumented.

DOUBLE BILL (tickets sold separately)
25 September
The Wolf Knife (15)
Laurel Nakadate
A teenage girl flees her humdrum life in Florida to track down her father in Nashville.

Shame (18)
Steve McQueen
Michael Fassbender plays Brandon, a man for whom sex is a compulsion that keeps him isolated from any form of intimacy.

3 October
Post-Revolutionary Cities on Film plus Q&A (12A)
Declan Clarke
Declan Clarke presents his film Cologne Overnight alongside the UK premiere of On Our Own We Are Free To Do Many Things.

DOUBLE BILL (tickets sold separately)
10 October
The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni (PG)
Rania Stephan
Ahaunting documentary meditating on the life of Egyptian screen legend Soad Hosni.

The Nine Muses (PG)
John Akomfrah
A beguiling exploration of the UK's immigrant experience from 1949-1970.

17 October
Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present
Matthew Akers
A profile of Abramovic as she prepares for her show at MoMA.

24 October
The Wildness plus Q&A (15)
Wu Tsang
A portrait of the Silver Platter, a historic LGBT-friendly bar on the Eastside of LA.

31 October
Deep State plus Q&A (12A)
Karen Mirza & Brad Butler
A new science fiction film scripted in collaboration with author China Mieville.

7 November
The Creator plus Q&A (12A)
Al & Al
An exploration of the legendary myth of the father and maker of AI (Artificial Intelligence) machines, Alan Turing.

14 November
Preview: I Remember and Teenage plus Q&A
Matt Wolf
The director of Wild Combination returns to FACT to present two new films never previously seen in the UK.

21 November
Two Years at Sea plus Q&A
Ben Rivers
Winner of a FIPRESCI Prize at the 2011 Venice Film Festival.

13 September
Artist Talk
Join artists Anja Kirschner, David Panos and Jemima Wyman as they explore and respond to provocations set by The Unexpected Guest alongside Joanne McNeil, editor of Rhizome.

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9 October
Time Topographies: Liverpool (UK Premiere)
with performance from Amanda Gutierrez
Special presentation of a new video triptych featuring a live performance and Q&A with the artist and cast.

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19 October
Break Bread Open
Artists, writers and educators from the Food Thing, will serve a buffet, and present a special screening introducing new work by Jesse Jones. Discussions will be led by writer Declan Long and writer/curator Dr. Paul O'Neill and more.

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26 October
Random Acts: Artists Interventions into Broadcast
This forum celebrates the Random Acts series of commissions - including new commissions from FACT for the strand - and opens up a dialogue about the future of television as a shared space that has the potential to bridge new relationships between socially engaged audiences, curators, creative producers, and broadcasters.

15/22/29 September 6/13 October
Weaving Workshops

Collective Coverings, Communal Skin by artist Jemima Wyman fuses traditional weaving and meditative art therapy techniques to turn objects of conflict such as military uniforms into objects of comfort.



This collaborative artwork will grow as a new 'skin' throughout the festival.



Drop into one of our FREE Saturday workshops to create your own weaving which will become part of the artwork at FACT. Great for families!