Artlink Winter News

Artlink West Yorkshire Winter News.
We provide high quality, innovative artistic projects across diverse communities.

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Winter Greetings from all at Artlink!

We hope you've had a lovely break. Here's what we've been up to lately.

STUDIO 3

The group continued to meet this season with a visit to Dean Clough for the exhibitions 'Beneath the Surface' by Christopher P Wood and 'Punctum and Plume' by Kate Walters. We were delighted to receive continued funding from The Charles and Elsie Sykes Trust which contributes towards costs of running this group. Studio 3 exhibited their work at Headingley Heart as part of the Love Arts Festival in October. The group continues to grow in numbers and we retain a strong core of regular members. During January - March we shall be looking into how we can host a retrospective exhibition of members' work.
We are shortly starting an exciting project in collaboration with Leeds City Arts gallery exploring the work of J.S Cotman. We are visiting the Hearing Voices exhibition at Durham University in February.

Picture of Get Started Symposium.

GET STARTED

This was an incredibly busy time for the Get Started programme of work as we neared the end of the three year project. During this period, Artlink hosted a Symposium at Weetwood Hall on 6th October. This was an opportunity to deliver talks and findings from the project by participants, artists, Artlink staff and project partners. It was a wonderful day as we shared in the success and learning of this work, it was also an opportunity for some of the learning disabled adults to co-facilitate alongside some of the artists to deliver the final group workshop.

During this period, we also completed projects with Bramley Fulfilling Lives together with Bramley Primary School. This culminated in a celebration event in December which was attended by Rachel Reeves MP. Our work at Calverlands Day Centre was completed, which enabled us to work with adults with learning disabilities and dementia. A number of major breakthroughs happened with this work during this period; including, staff learning better and more conducive ways of engaging with some of the people with dementia that they cared for as well as building creative activities into their daily work. We also continued to develop our work with LiLAC the Progress Housing Group forum. Throughout December 2016 and January 2017, the group have their work publicity exhibited at Seven Arts in Chapel Allerton. This is a central hub for creatives within Leeds and we are very proud that the work of LiLAC forms a major centre piece here.

LIGHT NIGHT LEEDS 2017

Artlink commissioned Kinetic Sculptor Jim Bond to produce an installation for the entrance hall of Leeds Central Library. Jim produced 'H2US' a large sculpture of a head with reflective discs which shimmered as they moved in the air currents. Jim says about the sculpture: “We are over 50% water and the droplets floating within the frame of the head represent our connection with water as an element, as well as communicating Artlink’s core theme of promoting health and wellbeing through creative practice.” Artists Rozi Fuller and Jim hosted a workshop on the night in response to the sculpture, creating small lanterns - these were hugely popular with children throughout the evening.

Office space and rooms to rent

We have two offices with a large landing to rent, in our recently refurbished building near the University and Leeds centre. Short or longterm contracts available, though ideally we're looking for long term tenants. More info on our website.

Did you know that we also rent out rooms by the hour or day? We have a studio, meeting room and more general space in the basement, with small kitchen available.
More info here.

LOVE ARTS FESTIVAL

Artlink retained a strong presence at the Love Arts Festival, we held a workshop at Artlink - Tell Tales - working with clients of mental health services as well as colleagues across this sector. We also hosted a workshop as part of the Love Arts Conversation in October, held at Leeds City Museum. Artlink presented its ethnographic approach to evaluation as well as facilitating a workshop engaging people with this approach. We are often asked to present this methodology at conferences on a national scale, including the Creative People and Place conference last September.

BOOM!

Following on from the sessions held from April - June, Artlink ran an intensive week-long project with Leeds Youth Offending Service in August. Boom worked with young people accessing the service to explore a whole range of artistic opportunities including photography, projection, drawing and producing their own music video. The intention of which was to raise aspirations and to encourage constructive activity with others. Luckily the weather was gorgeous for our trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. On arrival, one of the participants exclaimed. ‘Where’s the Henry Moore … I need to see Henry Moore!’ We took time to explore the outdoor sculptures as well as the Not Vital Exhibition in the Underground Gallery. For all of the young people, this was their first trip to the park and they all came back to Artlink buzzing with excitement from their visit. This was the first time we have worked over a significant period of time with YOS. The learning from this work and potential for development means we are now looking at how we build on this work.

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