AND arts festival comes to Birkenhead

A curated weekend of open-air screenings coincides with a large scale sonic installation, both located at prominent historic maritime sites in Birkenhead from 1-4 July 2021. 

DOES SPRING HIDE ITS JOY – KALI MALONE 

‘Does Spring Hide Its Joy’ is an immersive audio experience by composer Kali Malone, collaborating with musicians Stephen O’Malley and Lucy Railton.

It is a 4-day multichannel sound installation and Malone offers a deep listening environment in the nineteenth-century derelict site of the Grade II Central Hydraulic Tower, on Tower Road between Birkenhead and Wallasey, which once powered the movement of lock gates and bridges at the Birkenhead docks.

Created in the empty Berlin Funkhaus during the lockdown of Spring 2020, ‘Does Spring Hide Its Joy’ is a study in long-form, non-linear durational composition, with a heightened focus on septimal just intonation (musical instrument tunings with a limit of 7) and beat interference patterns.

Visitors will be invited into the main hall of the building to listen, walk, sit, and be bathed in the vibrations of the durational audio installation, from Thursday 1 – Sunday 4 July, 12-2pm, 2-4pm, 4-6pm daily.

OBSERVATORY CINEMA 

A big screen weekend considers the art of sculpting time in the grounds of Bidston Observatory, Birkenhead: a location historically renowned for measuring natural undulations of tide and time.

From this site of scientific observation and lighthouse signals overlooking the Merseyside estuary, AND will curate new waves of cinematic experience as part of the Observatory Cinema programme.

Fri 2 July, 4 – 6pm – Song of the Sea, curated by Scalarama Merseyside.

Fri 2 July, 7.30 – 10pm – All Light, Everywhere

Sat 3 July, 6.30 – 10pm – The Fog

Sun 4 July, 6.30 – 10pm – The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

On the River Mersey Ferries, and also a part of the AND festival, is Blue Violet River, from Thursday 24 June- Sunday 27 June between 10am – 4pm (Thursday and Friday) and 10am – 5pm (Saturday and Sunday.)

These events join the programme alongside site-specific projects announced earlier in the year: By The Sound of Things  by Kate Davies, and WetLab by public works and Assembly.