Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Fine Art students to present films at Beeston Festival
The team of six level five and six students teamed up with the BasementArtsProject, a grassroots arts venue in Beeston run by Bruce Davies, a Leeds Beckett Contemporary Arts Practice graduate, in September last year.
The project has been funded by Community First, and began with the students meeting up with six family groups located in the South Leeds area in January 2015 to begin a film project. In close collaboration with Alan Dunn, Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at our University, BasementArtsProject has been facilitating the project, which focused on community engagement and the idea of promoting not just art, but the idea of art education, to members of the South Leeds community.
The remit was to create an opportunity for our students and members of the community to engage in a project that would allow them to experience something of each other’s lives and, in the process, creating an artwork. Through this the idea of a film project was born. The process of filmmaking brought together two very different groups of individuals, who were able to engage with an idea and learn from one another. The students discovered about long-standing local communities and the kind of issues surrounding life in South Leeds, whilst the community members gained practical experience within a university environment and an understanding of some of the processes involved in filmmaking.
Taking part were Annabel Crosby, Leah O’Connell, Kirsty Doyle, Rebecca Dyson, Rhianna Mayhew, and Cressida Barrett.
Senior lecturer Alan Dunn said: "The six shorts produced are very genuine, open and honest portraits of everyday people preparing for their Sundays, juggling personal needs with caring for others. Each film represents only a 30 minute snapshot of these peoples' lives but each can be seen as standing for the much bigger challenges and journeys that life offers.
"This model of project is perhaps the best way for students to learn about working in different contexts and developing socially-engaged work. There has been a real excitement amongst them about discovering new parts of, and communities in, Leeds, the city where they chose to study. We have previously set up collaborative projects with the Leeds Big Screen, hired an aerial photography aeroplane for a drawing project at Headingley, worked with Pathologists at Leeds Teaching Hospital and collaborated with the world's leading sound-recordist, Chris Watson."
Taking place at Crossflatts Park in Beeston, ‘30’ will be screened throughout the day on Saturday 6 June, beginning at 12pm and then every half hour throughout the day until 5pm. Each screening lasts 18 minutes and contains six short films.
BasementArtsProject is an artist-led initiative, located in a pre-war, mid-terrace house in South Leeds, facilitating and promoting the activities of artists nationally and internationally whilst maintaining a broad and varied programme within the city of Leeds.
The team’s current activity is based around a frequent series of events taking place throughout the year whilst seeking funding to convert the space into a fully operational studio / residency project / Gallery venue with its own access and facilities.