Presented by Liverpool Biennial and Liverpool John Moores University and curated by Prem Krishnamurthy, Emily King, and Joasia Krysa, Design & Empire brings together practitioners from the fields of art, design, architecture, and fashion.

Framed by guided city tours exploring Liverpool’s architectural past and a cooking event serving a colonial-style Christmas Pudding, the weekend presents a series of talks from leading creative voices. These conversations touch upon topics ranging from national identity and the display of museum collections, copying within creative manufacturing, distributed models of property ownership, postcolonial approaches to contemporary fashion, reuse and revaluation of bio-industrial materials, the politics of computer interfaces, and beyond. All events are free and booking is required.

See the full schedule here and register now.

With Liverpool as both the subject and stage, Design & Empire will collaborate with its citizens in challenging aspects of Liverpool’s imperial legacy whilst reflecting on current practices within design and visual culture.

Participants include: Shumi Bose (curator, RIBA and teacher, Central Saint Martins, University of The Arts London) | artist duo Cooking Sections (Daniel Fernández Pascual & Alon Schwabe) | Frederico Duarte (curator) | Paul Elliman (artist and designer) | Mohamed Elshahed (Project Curator, Modern Egypt Project) | Christopher Kulendran Thomas (artist) | Mae-ling Lokko (architect and Assistant Professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) | Meriç Öner (Director of Research & Programming, SALT) | Duro Olowu (fashion designer) | Christian Ulrik Andersen (Associate Professor, Aarhus University, Department of Digital Design and Information Studies) | Grace Wales Bonner (fashion designer)