Artistic Research, Social Value and Green Space in East Leeds
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Welcome to the East Leeds Project, a practitioner-led visual arts organisation based in Gipton, East Leeds. We are a not-for-profit Community Interest Company.
The East Leeds Project aim to achieve positive change in our community through sustainable, equitable and accessible approaches to contemporary practice, working with artists, local people and other partners. Our focus on the Wyke Beck Valley area of East Leeds enables us to explore issues around art’s relationship with climate change, public space and urban development, and to propose responses as and through curatorial activism. This work is shaped through ongoing dialogue with our partners and realised through co-production wherever appropriate.
To find out about opportunities to get involved or just to receive regular updates on our work, please sign up to our mailing list.
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Moon Palace
Your invitation to the moon and back
Launching Moon Palace by Heather Peak and Ivan Morison, an East Leeds Project and LEEDS 2023 co-production
A gift from East Leeds to the world, Moon Palace is a new social sculpture and working observatory by artists Heather Peak and Ivan Morison.
Inspired by civil engineer and astronomer John Smeaton and the observatory he built in East Leeds, Moon Palace brings together creativity and art, engineering and science, collaboration and public good. Find us on tour around Leeds from June to December.
Click on the banner below to book your place for moongazing sessions with expert astronomers, and join us on this absurdly joyful, other-worldly adventure.
About the Artists
Heather Peak (b.1973, UK) and Ivan Morison (b.1974, Turkey) have established an ambitious collaborative practice over the past 18 years that transcends the divisions between art, architecture, theatre and social practice, questioning what it means to be an artist in the 21st Century. They are co-directors of Studio Morison, an artist-led creative practice which supports and realises their ideas and the people they work with.
Heather and Ivan have created temporary and permanent projects in many countries around the world, and their work is held in private and public collections in the UK, Canada, USA, Holland and Denmark. Recent commissions include Silence – Alone in a World of Wounds at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, and Small Bells Ring, commissioned by Coventry City of Culture, Super Slow Way, Lancashire Libraries, Coventry Libraries and Canal & River Trust (both 2021).
Moon Palace Credits
Moon Palace is by Heather Peak and Ivan Morrison. It is an East Leeds Project and LEEDS 2023 Co-production and is commissioned by Foxglove and LEEDS 2023 for Smeaton300.
The work is based on an original idea of a mobile observatory by East Leeds Project. Developed in collaboration with the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leeds. Support by LEEDS 2023, Leeds City Council, The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Arts Council England, Bruntwood, Burberry and Scottish Power Foundation. Smeaton300 is an original idea developed by Foxglove, enabled by Leeds City Council in partnership with LEEDS 2023. Supported by National Lottery Heritage Fund, Arts Council England, Bruntwood, Burberry and Scottish Power Foundation.
Moon Palace photos: Charles Emerson
ELP Films
Part of the East Leeds Project, ELP Films make documentary and promotional films for charities, trusts, not for profit organisations and the cultural sector by developing compelling narratives to engage with stakeholders and audiences. ELP Films is led by producer and award-winning screenwriter Paul Harker.
At the moment we are working on a short film to be aired on the Sky Arts channel, in partnership with Arts Council England, LEEDS 2023, The Space and Studio 12. Sky Arts commissioned five of the brightest creative talents in Leeds to create a new series of short films for the city’s Year of Culture addressing the question ‘What’s worth fighting for?’ Find out more
Our commissioned film, Moon Palace – A Stargazer’s Journey, was shot on location in East Leeds in August in partnership with Panoptical Ltd and Director Ashley Karrell, is curreently in post production and will screen on Sky Arts this Autumn. Watch this space!
If you’d like to discuss a film project, get in touch with our Communications Director, Paul Harker, on films@eastleedsproject.org. We can help bring your ideas to life, working across scriptwriting, filming, producing and editing.
All profits go back into making great things happen in East Leeds.
