Public Spaces: Liverpool Biennial 2016: Sculpture by Alisa Baremboym
Venue: Kelvin Grove and High Park Street
Date(s): 9.7.16 - 16.10.16
Time(s): All Day
Alisa Baremboym’s sculpture is also part of the Monuments from the Future episode. It is made from the same type of perforated sheet metal used to shutter the doors and windows of empty terraced houses in the area.
The metal surrounds and weaves through organic forms made of ceramic and tinted concrete. A native grass is planted around the sculpture, and slowly grows through the holes in the steel. This hybrid object, somewhere between organic and synthetic, points towards the tension between the body and its environment.
In 2004, the Welsh Streets neighbourhood was subject to a government scheme, the Housing Market Renewal Initiative, that saw residents forced out of homes they had lived in for many years, leaving streets full of empty houses. Residents determined to remain in their homes appealed for alternatives to demolition, and since then, the area has been the focus of fierce local and national debate around regeneration. The houses are no longer subject to demolition but are due to be repaired.