Professor Phil Redmond CBE has been appointed to drive forward a new partnership aimed at making Liverpool City Region the cultural and creative powerhouse of the north.
The Cultural Partnership, which the UK City of Culture head and Mersey TV founder will Chair, will bring together different organisations and their resources to support a common cultural strategy to stimulate creativity in all of its forms.
The aim is to maximise the promotion of existing activity, events and initiatives so they reach as wide an audience as possible and, for example, encourage exhibitions to tour the city region rather than being based in one location.
The Cultural Partnership will:
• Advance the success that the city has enjoyed during the last decade and make sure the city region has distinctive culture in the future
• Enable everyone to engage with and prosper from culture in its widest form, focusing on the need to stimulate creativity whether it is in science, the arts, the stage or entrepreneurialism
• Link learning, skills development and knowledge retention to make sure young people and the future workforce are prepared for future changes in technology
Its work over the next two years will be focused around:
• Creating a vision of a sustainable and vibrant cultural economy, and connecting partners to make it happen
• Co-operating with existing and new funders and investors to make the most of the money available and direct funding at shared objectives
• Working with partners on initiatives in health, education, policing, regeneration and business to maximise positive outcomes for residents
• Creating a world-class calendar of cultural events and activities
Its membership will be determined through discussions across both the city and region to discover who best can represent various cultural sectors and/or partners.
Mayor of Liverpool and Chair of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, Joe Anderson, said: “I am delighted that Phil Redmond has accepted my invitation to Chair the Cultural Partnership.
“This body is absolutely fundamental to building on the success we have seen over the last decade and is also integral to the success of the city region’s devolution deal with the Government.
“Culture is a way of life around here embedded in so many things in everyday life. And it is critical to our future development, which is why I have already announced an ambitious programme of events – Eighteen for 18 – to mark 10 years since we were European of Capital of Culture.
“I am clear that the whole region needs to work better and smarter together to make the most of cultural and creative funding, and use it to make the biggest impact it possibly can.
“We were the only city region in the UK to negotiate culture as part of our devolution agreement and the Cultural Partnership will be vital in delivering that element of the deal.”
The Cultural Partnership has evolved from the work of the 2015 Creative Commission, also Chaired by Professor Redmond. It recommended Liverpool needed a long term and sustainable cultural strategy, an agreed cultural calendar and an organisation to act as a cultural champion and co-ordinator for everything happening across the city region.
Professor Phil Redmond said: “We know what happened in 2008 and what has followed since then and it is easy to forget that only a few years before all of that Liverpool was in turmoil, with some in London suggesting it should be allowed to fail.
“In the 1980’s, only 30 years ago, the Maritime Museum was the first symbol of hope in the Albert Dock when it became the first stage of the waterfront’s regeneration. The Museum of Liverpool is the latest, and in 2018 Tate will be celebrating 30 years in Liverpool.
“All of this seems like no time at all and just as it seems like the time is right to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Liverpool’s time as UK Host to the European Capital of Culture programme, it also feels the right time to start the cultural debate about what sort of city region we can forge with that same sort of collaborative effort.”
For 2018, plans are in motion to work with some of the world’s best artists, musicians and cultural organisations with early discussions in place that could potentially see the return of some of the most iconic Royal de Luxe’s Giants and the Tall Ships fleet which made a splash in 2008.
The 18 new commissions will be integrated into the city’s already celebrated cultural offer, and will aim to attract audiences of around five million people, creating upwards of £50million economic impact and push Liverpool to
the top of the ‘must-visit’ cities in 2018.
The Cultural Partnership will use the year as the launchpad to stimulate debate, discussion, research and collaboration around what sort of world any child born in 2018 will inherit when they reach the age of 30 in 2048.
