Liverpool Biennial 2025 Announces ‘Bedrock’ Theme

Spotlight Liverpool Biennial Takes a Step Towards Reparations Elaine YJ Zheng

The Liverpool Biennial today revealed details of its 13th edition, which takes place from 7 June to 14 September 2025.

Marie-Anne McQuay, the event’s curator, said she invited artists to provide their definitions of ‘BEDROCK’, which included ‘family and chosen family, cultural heritage carried across the generations, and the environments that nurture and restore them.’

‘Central to this understanding of BEDROCK is the sense of loss that comes from the ongoing legacies of colonialism and empire so formative to Liverpool’s foundations,’ she said.

The Biennial will feature contributions from artists including Ana Navas, ChihChung Chang, Christine Sun Kim, Elizabeth Price, Fred Wilson, Isabel Nolan, Jennifer Tee, Mounira Al Solh, and Sheila Hicks.

The full list of participating artists can be viewed on the Biennial’s website.

The Biennial programme is presented in locations across Liverpool. Venues added for the 2025 festival include Liverpool Cathedral, Walker Art Gallery and Liverpool Central Library.

Dr Samantha Lackey, director of the Liverpool Biennial, said, ‘We’re excited to have forged new relationships with local organisations including First Take and At The Library, alongside our work with longstanding partners at Tate Liverpool, National Museums Liverpool, FACT, Bluecoat and Open Eye Gallery, consolidating the city’s cultural connections between the local and the global and looking to its foundations to support growth and possibility for the future.’ —[O]

Main image: Isabel Nolan, Partial Eclipse (2017–18); The Light Poured Out Of You (2016); and 'It Was Hot, Dense And Smooth' (2018). Exhibition view: 38th EVA International, Limerick (14 April–8 July 2018). Courtesy the artist, Kerlin Gallery, and EVA International. Photo: Lee Welch.