East Leeds Project

We are a practitioner-led visual arts organisation based in Gipton, East Leeds. We work with art as a social action, which we understand as ‘employ[ing] the varied forms offered by the expanded field of contemporary art as a collaborative, collective and participatory social method for bringing about real-world instances of progressive justice, community building and transformation’.(Gregory Sholette and Chloë Bass, 2018) We 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. We facilitate the emergence of spaces in which dialogue and practice can take place, centering the role of artists and inviting in other voices to challenge, celebrate and help us build together an authentic and mutually supportive community of practice at the local level. We work with a broad and evolving definition of visual arts. 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. Since May 2019 we have been based above the Methodist Church in the heart of the 1930s Gipton estate. Responding to the sparseness of arts and culture infrastructure across this part of the city, we have instigated a project to co-produce a makerspace, the East Leeds Pavilion, working with local residents, architect Irena Bauman, and MassBespoke. It will be the very first of its kind anywhere in East Leeds.