The East Leeds Triangle is all about working collaboratively to achieve more together than we can alone.
We are really excited to be working closely with our East Leeds neighbours Space2 and East Leeds FM as the ‘East Leeds Triangle’. Read on for more about what our partnership means and what has brought us together. We’ll be sharing news about our collaboration as the project develops.
Our Joint Statement
As three local arts organisations with shared values and motivations (East Leeds FM, East Leeds Project, Space2) we have come together to work in partnership as the East Leeds Triangle. We work together and with cross-sector partners to address social and environmental injustices historically associated with the east sides of cities by implementing change through co-production and multiplying leadership.
Cities that were formerly reliant on industry tend to have Eastern suburbs that are notably poorer than Western suburbs… this East-West gradient is the most visible remnant of a more general process induced by the atmospheric pollution which affected cities during the Industrial Revolution. […] Beside the well documented short-run effects of pollution exposure on health, there is a significant long-run consequence of an uneven pollution exposure across space: pollution may induce large spatial inequalities that survive de-industrialization. 1
We are embedded within the communities of Gipton and Seacroft, working from landmark buildings deeply rooted in local history and linked by the natural resources and local assets of the Wyke Beck Valley. Working in partnership enables us to have more impactful approaches to addressing the inequalities highlighted and exacerbated by the Covid pandemic through collaborative approaches to programming, conversation and developing alternative economies.
Our shared values:
- Taking an asset-based approach to community development
- Creating the conditions for co-production among ourselves, local people, artists and partners
- Challenging and dismantling entrenched hierarchies and barriers to participation in the arts while valuing all cultures
- Placing environmental sustainability and social justice at the forefront of our thinking and action
- Empowering compassionate and diverse leadership
- Creating a work environment shaped by sociability and care
Our shared motivations:
- Connecting diverse people through arts and culture
- Being part of sustainable positive change with local people
- Resisting misconceptions by celebrating the already-existing and new cultures and voices of East Leeds and generating new co-produced narratives
- Challenging the dominance of city-centric discourse on culture in Leeds
- Exploring synergies between East Leeds and the east sides of cities globally
- Belief in the transformative potential of participatory arts and creativity
- Stephan Heblich, Alex Trew and Yanos Zylberberg, East Side Story: Historical Pollution and Persistent Neigborhood Sorting, Spatial Economics Research Centre, 2016 (http://www.spatialeconomics.ac.uk/textonly/SERC/publications/download/sercdp0208.pdf)
