It’s been a busy… no hectic summer for our mobile makerspace KIOSK, as we’ve engaged hundreds of young people in creative activities, plus new Non-executive Directors have been appointed… and well… a major announcement is brewing!

KIOSK on tour

In late June we wrapped up the KIOSK role in the ground-breaking Healthier Working Futures project, funded by the UK Government through the UK Community Renewal Fund, with our partners Leeds Health & Care Academy and Lighthouse Futures. We’re working on a short film about the programme, which aimed to engage some of the most disadvantaged young people in Leeds with careers in the health and care sector, to be shared later this year.

Through August we piloted a programme of KIOSK activities at Nowell Mount Community Centre in Harehills, in partnership with Bellbrooke GP Surgery. We’re really proud that we were able to engage over 150 children and young people with creative activities and to provide healthy food during the school holidays.

Also in August, we worked with East Leeds-based artist Joanna Jowett to deliver a cyanotype workshop on Killingbeck Fields as part of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s family fun day. During the gorgeous sunny day over 50 people came along to make their own print to take home, using only the power of the sun and the beautiful flora of the Wyke Beck Valley. 

Thank you to all the artists who’ve worked with us on KIOSK during this first year on the road. Thanks to future funding from Leeds Inspired and Leeds Community Foundation, we’ll be rolling out more creative sessions across East Leeds soon!

Introducing our new Directors

We are thrilled to welcome on board Jessica Bennett, Leo Carrie, Hannah Clapham-Clark, Laura Lulika and Kiu Yu Mok as Non-executive Directors of the East Leeds Project after an open call earlier this year. They join us at a really exciting time for the organisation and we can’t wait to work with them.

Meet them all here.

We’d also like to take this opportunity to thank our outgoing Directors, Aidan Moesby and Jason Hird. Aidan and Jason joined us in early 2020 and we hugely appreciate their support and friendship in helping us steer the organisation through the last two years.

Community Building in Leeds – film launch with Same Skies

Everyone’s welcome to join us at the Hyde Park Book Club on Tuesday 11 October from 6-7.30pm for the launch of three West Yorkshire Walks films made for Same Skies, the regional democracy think tank for West Yorkshire.

The films capture the spirit of this ongoing series of walks organised by Same Skies, and explore unorthodox ways of community building in Leeds, covering Chapeltown Co-housing and Frontline Self Build alongside the East Leeds Project. The event will include introductions from film makers Rochyne Delaney McNulty and Toni Lee, and a Q&A with self-build pioneer and Same Skies organiser Claude Hendrickson.

FREE but booking required via Eventbrite

What’s the social value of the artist?

Our Artistic Director, Kerry Harker, will be contributing to a research workshop exploring this issue next week, organised by the Centre for Cultural Value at the University of Leeds. What is the role of the artist in society, and how can we capture their social value?

This online event is free to attend – find out more and book your place here.

And finally…

Stay tuned for an astronomically exciting announcement coming later this month! 

Kind regards
The East Leeds Project Team
Email info@eastleedsproject.org

The East Leeds Project in partnership with LEEDS 2023 is seeking expressions of interest from artists and/or creative teams to help us imagine and realise a mobile observatory to tour East Leeds and beyond in 2023.

The project has been inspired by the upcoming 300^th birthday of John Smeaton in 2023-24. Smeaton was a self-taught engineer, inventor and collaborator. He is recognised as the father of civil engineering in the UK but his legacy is global and has enduring relevance. He built his own observatory at Austhorpe in East Leeds, where he was born in 1724 and died in 1792.

The East Leeds Observatory will take Smeaton’s incredible legacy as a point of departure for seeking intersections between his twin passions of astronomy and engineering, and visual culture. We want to explore the possibilities for a mobile structure which can operate simultaneously as a functional observatory, a creative lab for art and science, and a visually dynamic work of kinetic/sculptural design. Our ambition is that the Observatory will be at once a work of public art, mobile architecture and a place to come together: a space for collective conversations, observations and imaginings about everything under the sun, moon and stars as seen from East Leeds.

Following the Observatory’s initial tour in 2023, we hope that the project will continue to inspire and engage new audiences with Smeaton’s legacy into the future.

To download the brief click here

Submissions must be made through Curatorspace

The deadline for expressions of interest is 5pm on Friday 27 May. We can’t wait to hear from you!