Laura Davis picks out 10 weird and wonderful highlights of the Liverpool Biennial, which opens this weekend

FOR 10 weeks from tomorrow, Liverpool city centre transforms into a gallery showcasing work by sculptors, installation artists and painters from all over the world.

Previous Biennial works have included a hotel built around the Victoria Monument, cages placed around the lions on St George’s Plateau, a Swedish house playing continuous Abba songs, giant flowers in Lime Street Station, and a copse of revolving real trees.

So what does this year’s festival of contemporary visual art have in store?

Put simply, it is divided into a number of strands:

The International, the main strand, which this year has the theme “touched”, includes works in disused buildings and sculptures on the streets, as well as exhibitions at Tate Liverpool, FACT, A Foundation, Open Eye and The Bluecoat.

The John Moores Painting Prize – the UK’s best-known painting competition, with former winners including David Hockney, Richard Hamilton and Peter Doig.

Bloomsberg New Contemporaries, an annual exhibition of the work of art school students or recent graduates, chosen by a team of selectors from the arts profession.

City States, a series of international exhibitions exploring the cultural dynamics between cities and states, at the Contemporary Urban Centre, Greenland Street.

Cooperative, a collective of collectives, led by seven of the foremost artist groups in the city, Arena, Red Wire, The Royal Standard, Sound Network, LSSSS, Jump Ship Rat and Mercy, at the former Rapid paintshop, on Renshaw Street.