Giant animated artworks, made entirely of sustainable bamboo, are set to come to life in this year’s Liverpool City Region Cultural Events programme.
Part of Mayor Steve Rotheram’s 1% for Culture programme, which earmarks 1% of the CA’s core funding to activities designed to promote culture and creativity, the large-scale art project ‘Imagine Bamboo is Everywhere’ will see communities from across the city region building six interlinked artworks.
Delivered by outdoor arts company Imagineer with artistic director Orit Azaz, the huge structures will appear in each of the six local authority areas in August along with performances, music and craft workshops at outdoor events.
Knowsley will host it’s Imagine Bamboo is Everywhere event at the Knowsley Flower Show on Sunday 6 August at Court Hey Park.
Bamboo is one of the strongest, most flexible and sustainable materials in the world. It has uses in design, construction, green innovation, farming, toxic soil remediation and carbon capture.
Local residents, young climate leaders and artists from across Liverpool City Region are coming together with engineers from Atelier One and bamboo specialists from four continents to explore bamboo as a sustainable material for the future.
The project is using locally grown borinda bamboo, originally from mountainous Tibet, brought to the UK by a botanist working for University of Liverpool and grown at Ness Botanical Gardens, They have allowed the team to explore what can be designed, made and built for Imagine Bamboo is Everywhere in Liverpool City Region.
The installations build on the work that took place last year, where 14 artists led pilot projects with communities across the city region including Taking Root, which saw 24 baby Borinda bamboo plants taken home and raised by their ‘parents’ before being planted in Court Hey Park in Knowsley, to become a future sustainable building material for the planet.
The six outdoor events featuring the installations and performances are:
5 August: Mesnes Park, Newton le Willows, St Helens
6 August: Knowsley Flower Show, Court Hey Park, Knowsley
12 August: Victoria Park, Widnes, Halton
19 August: Wirral Country Park, Thurstaston, Wirral
20 August: Great Georges Square, Chinatown, Liverpool
26 August: Kings Gardens, Southport, Sefton