April Newsletter

This month we're inclined to agree with Kurt Vonnegut who called March and April not Spring but 'unlocking', the slow unfurling towards the season and the rebirth of everything as it steadily gets warmer and brighter. 

This month sees two parts of the programme touring around the UK, reaching new audiences and showcasing some of the highlights from last year in galleries and libraries. We’ve also had a gentle and grounding time working with our Associate Artists, experimenting with their practices and developing how their projects will grow over the coming months with audiences in Bootle.

Discover everything happening in April At The Library here.

The Colour of Pomegranates is our monthly creative wellbeing for women and families, including creative workshops on Saturdays led by our Associate Artists Dora, Jennifer and Cintia. 

In the past year we've come together to mark significant moments in the calendar, danced together, written letters, painted, embroidered, cooked and explored creativity in different cultures and languages as a community. We’ve also been reading literature from different cultures together including letters in Portuguese and Nepalese poetry, discussing the writing in the original language and translated into English. 

Want to learn new things, explore other cultures and share your own culture with your neighbours? Share skills and meet other women over creative activity?

Join us every second Saturday of the month for creative workshops in Bootle.

International Shared Reading on 1st April in Crosby and 16th April in Bootle.

Join the community

Last year we were a commissioning partner for Liverpool Biennial 2025, BEDROCK, commissioning DARCH, the collaborative practice of artists Umulkhayr Mohamed and Radha Patel to create Heaven in the Ground, an exhibition bringing together a sound-work and series of soil and ceramic sculptures, reimagining the underground as a sacred space for regeneration. 

The work came from gentle, experimental meeting points in Bootle. Taking insects, mycelium and the earth's bedrock as inspiration and guidance, we talked about our own rituals, grief, burial and different funeral rites across cultures, the conversation then turned into the sound piece by Um and Radha.  

This month, the exhibition begins its tour across Wales, starting at g39 in Cardiff, after its showing at Crosby Library and FACT as part of the Biennial last year. 

Following its time in Cardiff, you can catch this beautiful work at Mostyn, Llandudno and Mission Gallery in Swansea.

This month Kitchen Library goes on tour too, starting with the Libraries Connected conference in Manchester Central Library. Regular Kitchen Library volunteer Basia Lesniak will show us how to make her famous sauerkraut recipe, which she's made with our audiences in Fermentation Bonanza in Bootle.

She'll use different spices, including wild ones from the spice rack made with artist Hannah Fincham as part of her Seasoning residency with us last year.

We're excited to bring the NPO programme to new audiences in other libraries, talking about future plans and discussing what the Kitchen Library means to our collaborators, volunteers and regular participants. It's been such a pleasure to see Basia's practice developing within the library over the past couple of years, experimenting with new ideas and working with audiences both locally and nationally (one participant travelling from Bolton just to ferment!). 

Looking for new artistic inspiration? Want to know more about what the library has to offer your practice? 

Artist Office on Tuesday 14th April includes a tour of the library archive, and discussion of how archives can be a resource for new creative ideas! 

Last year, Libraries Producer Joe Goff created Remixing Sefton’s Archive using archival film material, with community screenings around Sefton, using their responses to guide the editing and create a new film. Artist and musician Ria Bagley scored the film and performed it live for the launch of the film in Crosby Library. The creative ways people engaged with the material was just one way to harness the archive for artworks.

Book your free place below let us know if there's anything in particular you're interested in! What are you curious about?

The tour will be at 1pm but we'll be co-working in the library from 11am - 3pm so join us for good coffee, tackling your to-do list and your creative admin!

Explore with us

Are you an At The Library regular? Been to parts of the programme over the past year? We’d love to hear your thoughts: what you loved, what you’d like to see more of and what we could do differently. 

Click below to fill in the form and help us shape the future programme!

Tell us what you think 

New opportunity for artists! Broken Grey Wires are opening up a residency in Back Room, Safe Regeneration in Bootle. 
The outcome of a residency is not necessarily a finished piece of art. Instead, the emphasis is on the creative process itself. Artists are encouraged to experiment, be curious, take risks, and learn new skills as they develop their ideas. 
Applications are open now. 
Deadline 1st May 2026.

Find out more and apply here