2020 Festival Highlights

As we made it to the end of a uniquely difficult year for the arts scene across the UK and the pandemic that has changed the world and how we see and do things, we wanted to reflect on what we achieved as an organisation despite the lockdowns, restrictions and challenges. 

Throughout the pandemic, Covid-19 affected Black and Brown people disproportionately , the impact in our communities meant that we could not stop our work in a time where it felt it was needed most. The pandemic exposed and revealed deep-seated trauma within our ethnic and Black communities and the racism in society, that frankly, has always existed.

We quickly became fully digital, and were one of the first organisations to provide digital opportunities. We acted on impulse and responded to the needs of our artists, audience and participants. Digitalising opened us up to bigger ambitions and gave us global access as one of the only operating black led arts organisations supporting black creatives in Liverpool at the time we expanded our reach internationally and helped the community stay connected, provide equity and reduce loneliness. 

As much as we were trying to hold the community through the pandemic, the whole world witnessed the murder of George Floyd, Being a black-led organisation, underfunded with many vulnerable artists and communities that we engage with, our output and attention was then more aggressively directed at supporting the morale of our artists and communities remotely while also supporting our board of directors that were affected. This impacted us gravely and made us realise why it’s really important for us to continue to provide opportunities to as many people as we can.

We launched the Liverpool City region’s first Black Arts online festival with BlackFest Digital 2020 covering many uncomfortable conversations, unapologetic, educating, creating a safe space and making a stance for BLACK LIVES MATTER we covered racial profiling and the justice system, arts practice and protest, we spoke on hair, afro herbal ancestral medicine, black women’s experiences, dual heritage, LGBTQI matters, the black queer experience,  abortion from the male perspective, colourism and so much more. 

The festival was fantastic showing our endurance and marking our resilience in these difficult times and that we are in this together and we will continue to work towards racial equality and investing in local Black talent and communities.

We achieved many milestones in 2020; we were in turn finalists for the LCR People’s Choice awards as an organisation and we contributed to DCMS’s cultural recovery during the pandemic where we received a letter of recognition from the department of culture recognising our work.