Liverpool
Contact: Bryan Biggs, Artistic Director
The Bluecoat has a 300-year history of the showcasing talent across visual art, music, dance, live art and literature.
Interdisciplinary in its approach, the Bluecoat has established relationships with most of the local universities: Liverpool, LJMU and, to a lesser extent, with Hope and Edge Hill.
With LJMU, with its extensive range of arts-related courses, the Bluecoat has informally supported students from Creative Writing and from the Arts School, providing voluntary opportunities, acting as a sounding board on projects, and staff have given talks to students groups.
A more formal relationship is in the process of being developed. In the meantime, The Link-Scheme allows interns from LJMU to spend 15 days at the Bluecoat and Architecture students, also from LJMU were involved in a re-design exercise of the new wing.
A Residency programme with Liverpool University enables an academic to spend a year at the centre. Currently, the sociologist Dr Paul Jones, whose term lasts two semesters, gives lectures exploring the subject of civic society, which are open to the public.
The Bluecoat has made moves to address the needs of Adults with Learning Disabilities through the development of The Blue Room. This provides an alternative to day-care provision for 3 or 4 days a week. Within the Blue Room, learners work with artists and make an exhibition. Last year, a doctoral student from the University of Leeds worked in the Blue Room and curated an exhibition of the members work.