November 9 thru 13, 2023
All the World’s Futures, From Here, All the World’s Pasts
Like many maritime cities across the globe, Liverpool is a city of opportunity, adventure and ideas. One that wrestles with both a glorious and difficult past, while aspiring to a more hopeful and equitable future. For the past 20 years, culture in its widest embrace has been at the heart of the city’s renaissance, so it feels right for this year’s BAP conference to take its inspiration from Nathan Coley’s text-based light sculpture – From Here, All the Worlds Futures, From Here, All the Worlds Pasts.
Liverpool is the perfect location for our conference. The Pool of Life is steeped in a rich history that goes well beyond just The Beatles. As the first city in the world to open a lending library, the sharing of information and opinion – and the broadening of horizons – is in the Liverpudlian DNA.
Our conference, based on the city’s iconic Hope Street, is a signal of bringing a diverse range of people and ideas together. As we acknowledge the past, its positive impacts and its challenging consequences, and with the political turmoil and economic instability that surrounds us, we’ll question what we can learn and take forward as we strive to make social change and create a hopeful future.
We will be visiting some of Liverpool’s iconic sites such as the Royal Albert Dock, International Slavery Museum, the Royal Philharmonic Hall, the Cavern and Liverpool Cathedral (to name a few). Expect stimulating sessions that encapsulate Liverpool’s complicated relationship with the past, the city’s hopes for the future, and most of all, the Liverpudlian ability to embrace and enjoy the present.