2011 provides an opportunity to celebrate a century of radicalism in Liverpool. The year will provide a context for an investigation into the city's history - culturally, socially and politically - as a place of radicals.

Crucially, whilst drawing on the past, it will also articulate Liverpool's current position and consider a radical future.

Rooted in the Liverpool experience, the scope of the year will aim to go beyond the local, connecting to the global and engaging with current thinking of radicals from around the world.

Why 2011?

A hundred years ago, in 1911, Liverpool was at the height of its power and influence. Three very different, radical events marked that year:

The Liverpool Transport Strike - according to some historians, the nearest the UK has come to a revolution - took place over a long hot summer, so alarming the Government that Churchill sent a warship to the Mersey.

The Bluecoat held a ground-breaking exhibition of paintings by the European avant-garde, including Picasso, Matisse and Cézanne, shown alongside works by local artists.

The Liver Building, the first major building in the UK to use reinforced concrete in its construction, was opened, a controversial, modern edifice crowned by two liver birds that came to symbolise the city's resilience.

And in the century that followed the city experienced many events, upheavals and innovations that contributed to its reputation for radical thought and actions, as it went from 'Gateway to Empire', through decades of decline, to its reinvention as a cultural capital in 2008.

Significantly it was individuals more than mass movements who left their mark. And a propensity for being 'bolshy' has arguably shaped the image of the city as uncontrollable, anarchic, separate and alienated from mainstream England.

This has gone hand in hand with creativity - cultural, sporting, etc - which has in the second half of this period reverberated beyond the city, from the Beatles changing the face of popular music, to Liverpool's unrivalled international visual arts offer today.

2011: Liverpool, city of radicals invites individuals, grass roots arts, community and other organisations to join in a programme of exhibitions, events, debates and other activities that, whilst drawing on a rich history, will identify and examine what - and who - is radical at the start of the 21st Century.
The year is being organised by the Bluecoat on behalf of partner organisations which include Liverpool City Council, RLPO, Africa Oye, Unity Theatre, Liverpool Irish Festival, Collective Encounters, the Duncan Society, Hope University, News from Nowhere bookshop, Liverpool Parks and the Primary Care Trust.

The new City of Radicals website www.cityofradicals.co.uk is coming soon which will include a full list of events and programmes, until then please click on the LARC link on the City of Radicals holding page for further information.