The Director of the Liverpool Biennial, Sally Tallant has announced the dates and curatorial team for 2016. The team includes Francesca Bertolotti (Head of Production and International Projects, Liverpool Biennial) and Polly Brannan (Education Curator, Liverpool Biennial), Rosie Cooper (Head of Programmes, Liverpool Biennial), Raimundas Malašauskas (curator and writer), Francesco Manacorda (Artistic Director, Tate Liverpool), and Dominic Willsdon (Leanne and George Roberts Curator of Education and Public Practice, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art).
One of the youngest of the major international art biennials, Liverpool Biennial has already firmly established itself on the world stage, providing a platform for British artists to be represented alongside their international peers. Reaching over one million people, the Biennial extends beyond a 14-week festival of contemporary art, with a year-round commitment to integrating art into the fabric of Liverpool, enhancing the experiences of the people who live in and visit the city.
Sally Tallant is the Director of Liverpool Biennial. From 2001–11 she was Head of Programmes at the Serpentine Gallery, London, where she was responsible for the development and delivery of an integrated programme of exhibitions, architecture, education and public programmes. She is a Board Member of the International Biennial Association and a member of the London Regional Council for the Arts Council of England.
Francesca Bertolotti is Head of Production and International Projects at Liverpool Biennial. From 2010-14 she was responsible for the Curatorial Projects at Artissima, Turin, and from 2007 to 2009 she led the Curatorial Department of the Hangar Bicocca, Milan. As a freelance producer she has organised projects by Alfredo Jaar, Mark Lewis, Raimundas Malašauskas, and Rosalind Nashashibi under the auspices of the Sharjah Biennial 10 in 2011 and the 55° Biennale di Venezia in 2013, amongst others.
Polly Brannan is Education Curator at Liverpool Biennial. She is an artist and educator who has produced projects at Frieze Art Fair, Lisbon Experimenta Festival and Nottingham Contemporary, amongst others. She was Collaborations Curator at Studio Voltaire from 2006-9, and Education Curator at Serpentine Gallery from 2011-13. She is co-founder of network Avant Gardening, and was a member of the collective public works from 2005-11.
Rosie Cooper is Head of Programmes at Liverpool Biennial. She was Public Programme Curator at Barbican Art Gallery from 2009-11. Current and previous projects include Bob Jubile (2011-), a series of events, displays and publications on poet and organiser Bob Cobbing (1920-2002), curated with William Cobbing; More Soup and Tart, Barbican (2011), and Tableau Vivant: A Wandering Retrospective, Prospect New Orleans (2010).
Raimundas Malašauskas is a curator and writer. Recent projects include In My Previous Life I Wanted to be a Tablet, Instituto de Vision, Bogota (2015), Tomorrow night I walked into a dark black star, Universidad Di Tella, Buenos Aires (2014), and Oo, Lithuanian and Cyprus pavilions at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013). He has co-written the libretto of an opera, produced a monthly television show, and was an agent for dOCUMENTA (13).
Francesco Manacorda is Artistic Director at Tate Liverpool. From 2010-12 he was Director of Artissima in Turin, and between 2007 and 2009 was Curator at Barbican Art Gallery, London, where he realised Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art (2008) and Radical Nature (2009). In 2007 he curated Venetian, Atmospheric, Tobias Putrih, the Slovenian Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale.
Dominic Willsdon is Leanne and George Roberts Curator of Education and Public Practice at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Professor in Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts. Recent and current projects include the exhibition Public Intimacy: Art and Other Ordinary Acts in South Africa (2014), the symposium Visual Activism (2014), and a book titled Public Servants: Art and the Crisis of the Common Good (forthcoming).
Liverpool Biennial, the UK Biennial of Contemporary Art, will take place from 9 July until 16 October 2016.