Take Over Festival 2022

Exploring themes of hospitality, ritual and gatherings, Take Over is an arts festival for everyone. Taking place over three weekends this autumn, you’ll find events, exhibitions, films, participatory performances and much more popping up in unexpected spaces and venues across St Helens and Knowsley.

Curated and hosted by Manchester-based live artist Lowri Evans, the theme for the 2022 edition of Take Over Festival is ‘Be Our Guest’.

Performance highlights of the festival include a game of bingo with a cosmic twist. Figs in Wigs bring their interactive performance Astrology Bingo, a bingo game based on your own horoscope. All your need to know is your birth date, time and location – and have your dabber at the ready.

Manchester-based performance artist Jenny Gaskell brings The Cloakroom, a drop-in pop-up installation where you can express and vent, check in and check out any emotional baggage. While, dancer Jane Mason brings street performance for passersby to enjoy, made in collaboration with people from Knowsley.

Turntable Theatre’s striking 20-foot pyramid will also welcome audiences to St Mary’s Market in St Helens; Made of Stars offers visitors a sensory experience that draws on the courageous stories of 14 refugee artists. Meanwhile, Eggs Collective present The Party Show Aftershow Party, a new family-friendly performance developed with year three students from schools in Knowsley and St Helens.

Additionally, the eclectic festival brings family-friendly film screenings, celebratory tastings and food events, free fashion styling sessions, photography exhibitions and spoken word. Be sure to check out the full programme.

Lowri Evans is an artist based in Manchester and São Paulo, Brazil. An associate artist with Eggs Collective, Evans describes herself as a maker of “intimate art projects in unusual places with complete strangers”. In 2015 she won a Manchester Theatre Award for The Shrine of Everyday Things, created with Renato Bolelli Rebouças, Rodolfo Amorim and Contact Young Company. The Lowry, Battersea Arts Centre, Transform Festival, Contact Theatre, Quarantine, Tate Liverpool and the University of Salford are just some of the venues and organisations that she has worked with.