Visible Virals 2021 - Lead Artist / Arts Organisation

Tender description

As part of the ongoing Covid recovery work with Public Health, Culture Liverpool will use high quality and engaging cultural activity to animate, bring to life and educate Liverpool's residents about the city's experience of COVID-19 so far, as documented in the Public Health Annual Report 19/20 (PHAR). Key messages of the project will be crucial in spreading awareness of the virus and how it has impacted our communities, and in building up people's resilience ahead of the next phase of the pandemic response - including ensuring wide-spread community vaccination. Working closely with Culture Liverpool, this project will commission a multi-media, accessible and unique programme of work to animate public health information in the public realm. Building on past projects, the programme will be called 'Visible Virals', a series of socially engaging and playful works in the public realm and venues all over the city. The name of the project draws parallels between how we will disseminate information and how viruses operate. We would commission an artist or artists' collective to reach out and positively engage with thousands of people. The project will 'introduce' creative ideas to specific populations and allow the work to take on an intelligent life of its own, with the 'artworks' adapting in response to their 'hosts' through both physical and digital participation. Transient in nature, and light touch, the artworks will infiltrate public spaces and infrastructures in the city, building in magnitude and inviting participation.