A Biennial for Everyone through Inspiration

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We present a 14-week festival of contemporary art that takes place every two years, underpinned by a year-round programme of work with schools, community partners and other arts organisations. Our approach is underlined by a simple principle – we believe that art fosters unique connections between people, places and moments, and that everyone should have the chance to experience it.

We pride ourselves on our ability to stretch the imagination of what art is, where it can be found, and who gets to interact with it. During the festival period, artists invigorate areas of Liverpool that may not often be exposed to art.

Works are placed in disused buildings like the Tobacco Warehouse (2023) and Lewis’s Building (2021), or retail spaces like Lush (2021) and SEVENSTORE (2025), or in public places like Liverpool Cathedral (2025) and Eurochemist Pharmacy (2025). We call these our ‘found venues’. By using these locations, we connect with those who might discover us unexpectedly, but also enrich the city for those who seek us out.

Liverpool Biennial 2025: ‘BEDROCK’ is unveiled across the city in 18 different locations. The careful selection of these sites embodies the festival’s framing around the different communities and histories that underpin the city, making it what it is today. Returning to Liverpool’s Chinatown was therefore important for our Curator, Marie-Anne McQuay. 

ChihChung Chang, ‘Keystone’, 2025. Liverpool Biennial 2025. Photography by Rob Battersby.

ChihChung Chang 張致中 was commissioned to create a mural for the area, and he did this by working with Pagoda Arts and residents from Chinatown. 

The mural, titled ‘Keystone’ (2025), is situated on a wall of a restaurant on Grenville Street South and reflects the shape of Liverpool’s Imperial Arch, which was a gift from Shanghai to celebrate the twinning of the cities 25 years ago and can be found a short walk away.

In the shadow of the arch is Pine Court Housing Association, which features further work by Chang as well as work by Karen Tam 譚嘉文, which addresses Chinese diasporic sonic memory in the form of a Cantonese opera stage. It is the perfect place to place these works; paper lanterns hang from above, stone lions sit as sentinels guarding the street, and golden dragons twist around vivid green lampposts. 

In the final mural, you can glimpse impressions of Mersey Dock, Liverpool ONE, the Queensway Tunnel, and countless Liver Birds, alongside participants’ personal items – making it a collective medley of the city itself and the stories of the people within. These stories came from workshops that were hosted by Chang in the lead up to the festival, that invited participants to take rubbings of objects around the city to depict the Arch, interspersed with personal items and meaning that reflected their heritage.  

ChihChung Chang, ‘Keystone’, 2025. Liverpool Biennial 2025. Photography by Rob Battersby.

By placing Chang’s work in Chinatown, amongst other artists’ works in the former Pine Court Housing Association office, Eurochemist, and the Black-E, we seek to pay homage to the legacy of Liverpool’s Chinatown and diasporic communities. These works are consciously interwoven across shop facades, streets and different centres used by the local community, each inviting audiences with alternative ways to experience the area and contemplate its context. 

Now, more than ever due to rising costs, we need your help to raise funds to keep delivering projects like this, that can be experienced every day, in exciting and unexpected locations. 

Make a donation here to help keep Liverpool Biennial free, for you and everyone.