Photographer Sara Teresa and designer Oli Bentley are looking to raise awareness of the huge range of creativity in Leeds in the form of the ‘Creative Family Tree’ project – an attempt to visualise the huge network of Leeds’ Creative and Cultural organisations and individuals.
People of Leeds – we need your support! We’re looking to raise awareness of the huge range of culture and creativity in our city. We want everyone working across all creative and cultural walks of life to better know what’s around them. This allows us to all work together and collaborate more, whilst showcasing what a cracking, creative place Leeds is.
In 2011, there was a little corner of Leeds that had been known for some time to host some of Leeds’ best creative institutions – The West Yorkshire Playhouse, The BBC, Leeds College of Music, Yorkshire Dance. But as the year came to a close there was a shift in the area. Just months after, Northern Ballet and Phoenix Dance opened the doors of their new state-of-the-art home; and what seemed like weeks after this, Munro House (the home of Leeds Gallery, Colours May Vary, Duke Studios and our own Culture Vulture) opened for business.
At the same time I was fortunate enough to have just opened Split’s own doors, to our first studio on Quarry Hill, and we found ourselves in the midst of some of the most exciting creatives in Leeds.
It was also on Quarry Hill, around this time, that I first met my now financé – photographer Sara Teresa – who was managing Café 164 at the time.
Sara was planning the first Quarry Hill Social – a social networking event for creative businesses and individuals on Quarry Hill – as a way to introduce the creative folk of Quarry Hill, old and new, to each other. She wanted a piece of design that would introduce everyone to everyone else – to give people something to take away, to use as a resource. Something to help them get to know their neighbours, something to encourage collaboration and to illustrate just how much creative work was happening all over Quarry Hill.
One evening, amongst a range of mad ideas (floor to ceiling wall of polaroids anyone?), a family tree was mentioned, and the idea of Quarry Hill as a “creative family” just stuck.
The Quarry Hill Family Tree was produced to include everyone in the area as one creative family. Members were categorised by sectors in which they specialised or were involved in, and online details were provided for every entry.
The family tree received a great reception, both on Quarry Hill and beyond, and now adorns the walls of more than a couple of businesses in the area. We found the most common reaction upon seeing all of the creatives on one sheet was “Wow – I can’t believe so much is happening on Quarry Hill”.
And so an idea slowly grew – what if we could expand this to all of Leeds? Could we invoke the same reaction in people when they saw Leeds as a whole? Would mapping all of Leeds’ creative/cultural projects even be possible?
Well, perhaps foolishly, this is what we’ve decided to find out!
Starting with Mabgate/Sheepscar and a second edition of Quarry Hill, we’re setting out to map all of the creative and cultural organisations and individuals in central Leeds.
After 6 months of research and design development we launched a Kickstarter last week to help fund the printing of the first two volumes and the response has been fantastic – after only the first week we reached 50% of the total £1,500 needed to fund the printing for the Family Trees… but we need your help for the rest!
You can find out more about the project and what we’re plotting (and perhaps even help by adding your donation!) here.
I really hope that that people who see the Family Trees will be as uplifted by the huge amount of fantastic work that goes on around us as we have been.