This blog set out the final published itinerary for the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (Fonds BKVB) study tour to northern England in October 2010. The UK programme was organised by Liverpool Biennial in collaboration with Atoll for Fonds BKVB. Check out the 5-day itinerary by clicking on the page links above.

City Guides

Manchester - Phil Griffin

Phil Griffin is a freelance writer, broadcaster and curator specialising in architecture and urban issues. He writes for a number of architecture journals including Building Design and AJ. In 2006 he curated the exhibition Every Cloud: Ten years after the Manchester Bomb at Urbis. He was a consultant and contributor to How We Built Britain: Liverpool on BBC 1. In 2005 he curated This City Wall a photographic record by Len Grant of the railway viaduct from Piccadilly to Pamona. This is installed on Platform 12 of Piccadilly Station, Manchester. He has worked on schemes with Urban Splash, Alsop Architects, Ian Simpson Architects, Aedas, Studio Egret West and Austin-Smith: Lord. He was creative consultant to Salford and Manchester City Councils in the first stage Lottery proposal for Irwell City Park.

Phil Griffin was born in Ancoats and has lived in Manchester all his life.


Leeds - Sue Ball

Sue Ball is the driving force behind Media and Arts Partnership (MAAP) and has been working in the arts and new media fields for over 15 years. Sue has extensive experience of initiation and project management of large scale arts and technology programmes in non-gallery settings, research and evaluation of arts programmes and public art strategy development.

Sue was director of Pavilion from 1996 to 2000, when she initiated and led a series of public art commissions for Photo98, Year of Photography and the Electronic Image with artists and architects including Pierre d’Avoine, Catherine Elwes, Janet Hodgeson and Susan Trangmar; and latterly, developed a programme of temporary public works as interventions within the construction of Leeds’ new Millennium Square. Also during this time, Pavilion, under Sue’s management, set up two community digital arts production spaces for emergent talent within local communities.

Sue is  a director and co-founder of Leeds Love It Share It. 


Leeds - Irena Bauman (Video introduction only)


Irena Bauman is co-founder of Bauman Lyons Architects Ltd, an architectural practice committed to experimenting with new design processes. She is the author of How to be a Happy Architect and is Chair of the placemaking committee of CABE (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment). Irena is also the Chair of the Yorkshire and the Humber’s first Regional Design Review Service; a member of CABE’s operations committee; and acts as an Enabling Commissioner.  Her work has been widely published and has received numerous architectural awards.


Along with Sue Ball, Irena is  a director and co-founder of Leeds Love It Share It.

Liverpool Day 1 - Laurie Peake

Laurie Peake is Programme Director for Public Art at Liverpool Biennial. Laurie leads on the development of the commissioning programme as a catalyst in the regeneration of the city and sub-region, recently delivering Richard Wilson’s Turning the Place Over in Liverpool city centre and Antony Gormley’s installation Another Place on Crosby Beach. Current projects include Jaume Plensa’s Dream in St Helens, part of C4’s Big Art Project, and a series of commissions in development with New Heartlands, the Housing Market Renewal initiative on Merseyside.

Laurie has over twenty years experience of facilitating collaborations between artists and public in the context of urban regeneration. Starting her career at the Tate Gallery in London, she was part of a small team that developed an innovative education and public programme at Tate Gallery Liverpool on the Albert Dock in what is often cited as the UK’s first regeneration project to use culture as its driver. She went on to develop a similarly successful programme at Camden Art Centre, London and followed this with a period as Visual Arts Officer at Arts Council England, North West.

Laurie came to Liverpool Biennial from Alsop Architects where she brought her experience to bear on the built environment, working with their urban visioning team on masterplans and major projects across the north of England. She is currently a board member of the Millennium Quarter Trust in Manchester (including Urbis and Cathedral Gardens).

Liverpool Day 2 - Jeanne van Heeswijk

Jeanne van Heeswijk is a visual artist who creates contexts for interaction in public spaces. Her projects distinguish themselves through a strong social involvement. With her work, Van Heeswijk stimulates and develops cultural production and creates new public (meeting-) spaces or remodels existing ones. To achieve this, she often works closely with artists, designers, architects, software developers, governments and citizens. She regularly lectures on topics such as urban renewal, participation and cultural production. She has been educated at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht and the Academy of Fine Arts in Tilburg. Her projects include It Runs in the Neighborhood, a hospital soap series for cultural capital of Norway; The Blue House, a house for the unplanned, IJburg; Dwaallicht, a narrative monument for a working-class neighborhood now part of the Historic Museum, Rotterdam; Face Your World, StedelijkLab Slotervaart, an interactive design lab for youngsters, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Subway to the outside, a TV-series with interventions, Artists Space, New York; and Casco, Coffee and Communication, a mobile communication vehicle for Casco, Utrecht. Lives and works in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Van Heeswijk’s work has been featured in internationally renowned biennials such as those of Bushan, Taipei, Shanghai and Venice.