Join us for an evening of music and conversation centred around Belinda Kazeem-Kaminski's Liverpool Biennial commission.

This event is inspired by the soundscape that Belinda Kazeem-Kaminski and Bassano Bonelli Bassano created in collaboration with participants from Liverpool who all work with their breath. The group includes actors, singers, teachers, activists, and therapists, amongst others.

The soundscape in the gallery is a 16-minute-long piece titled Keep On Keepin’ On (2022), which references Curtis Mayfield’s 1979 song 'Keep on Keeping On'. Presented alongside two video works, the installation references the precarity of Black breathing and proposes breath as a means of individual and collective liberation.

For this event, Belinda invites some of the film's participants to choose their own songs, bringing them to the audience for a collective listening session, as well as a conversation about the work and their involvement.

The panel is made up of Bea Freeman (filmmaker and community organiser), Elliss Eyo -Thompson (curator and spiritual practitioner), Heather Joy Tomlinson (actor, singer and business mentor) and Michelle Peterkin-Walker (local archivist, artivist and filmmaker). Jennifer John, award winning composer, vocal coach and singer/songwriter, will moderate the event.

The 12^th edition of Liverpool Biennial uMoya: The sacred Return of Lost Things addresses the history and temperament of the city of Liverpool and is a call for ancestral and indigenous forms of knowledge, wisdom and healing. In the isiZulu language, ‘uMoya’ means spirit, breath, air, climate and wind. Liverpool Biennial 2023 is curated by Khaniyisile Mbongwa.

The free, city-wide arts festival runs until 17 September 2023. Find out more here.