New Event: Finding Common Ground

Tickets are now available for Finding Common Ground: Making the Landscape Radical, a collaborative two-day event convened by the Paul Mellon Centre and Tate Liverpool.

The first day (Friday 8 July) is a symposium held at Tate Liverpool (with online tickets available). Imagined as an extension of the Radical Landscapes exhibition, the symposium provides a space to dig deeper into the histories and futures of the rural. The exhibition opens up the countryside as a space where questions around trespass, borders, access, edgelands, botany, artistic experimentation and struggles around civic freedoms coagulate. Following a private view of the exhibition for all attendees, the symposium will bring together scholars, artists and botanical practitioners to think together about contested spaces and collective action through talks, discussions and live performances.

The second day (Saturday 9 July) is a communal picnic and walking tour of Birkenhead Park, which was one of the first publicly funded parks in the world. Led by historian Dr Ruth Colton, it celebrates the radical nature of public parks as shared social spaces, whose creation was part of a national campaign to access natural, green space in urban settings. The tour explores how the landscaping and architecture of Birkenhead Park relates to empire and colonialism, and how its intended uses have been subverted by the public throughout its history to the present day.

Click here for the full event programme and tickets.