Earlier today a travelling shed of curiosities took up residence at Munro House to bring out the home tourist in us all by throwing a spotlight on events happening in the city. I caught up with Leeds Inspired co-ordinator Jane Earnshaw to find out more.
What inspires you to work and live in Leeds?
It’s a brilliant city for both – big but friendly, full of big green spaces to play out on, and crammed full of people who are creative, curious and inventive. There’s a really interesting creative scene here and what’s even better is that this scene is home-grown & authentic. One example of this is how independent events producers have championed unusual, and unused buildings – making use of really distinctive spaces many of us wouldn’t have heard about otherwise. Take Cabaret Heaven, Back to Basics, Leeds Young Authors, Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds International Film Festival, Leeds West Indian Carnival, Bettakultcha,….and so many more I’d like to mention. These are born and bred in the city, original, distinctive and very high quality. Would you find these anywhere else in the UK? In the next few weeks alone, there’s a big raft of interesting events happening; from Full Circle Arts’ celebration of Star Wars Day on 4th May, to Transform at the West Yorkshire Playhouse – in other words, masses of things to do at the end of a working day.
How are you working to inspire others about our events?
We think that Leeds isn’t lacking brilliant ideas, it’s just been missing a place dedicated to this city, where people can find out about those ideas, support them, and enjoy them – whether those are things to watch or things to get involved in. So in response, we’ve set up a website that shines a light on the cultural events in the city, in an effort to demonstrate to more people, how much is going on, not just in the centre but all across the city. We hope the site becomes a place known by people to find things to do to make their free time inspirational, and that in turn this supports event promoters across the city.
The site is in it’s beta-test phase currently, which means that we can make changes to how it works, and we hope that we can tweak it to make sure it’s easy to use. Anyone can put an event up and it takes no time at all. Just go to http://www.leedsinspired.co.uk/user to get started. And if you’re promoting an event, keep an eye out on @LeedsInspired because our resident photographer Lizzie Coombs will be searching out the photo opportunities around the city. Her theme this month is ‘Make’. Tweet your suggestions to @LeedsInspired
Tell us more about your travelling shed of curiousities…
This week, we’re on the road in Leeds, cramming www.leedsinspired.co.uk into a tiny wooden analogue world, to remind the good people of Leeds that summer’s here, and no-one should miss out on what’s happening.
Come and find out what’s inside the shed…play with the 3D printer, take the anti-gravity challenge and test your skills on our giant painting-by-numbers; and if you promote your own or other people’s events, we can give you a quick guided tour of the website.
Tuesday 17th / Wednesday 18th April: Munro House, 11-3pm
Friday 20th April: Munching our lunch with the Culture Vulture picnickers, Corn Exchange, noon-3pm.
What’s the most exciting event you’ve come across since Leeds Inspired started?
That’s a really hard question. We loved the recent Leeds Young Authors performance – proof if anyone needed it of the authentic voices (& amazing talent) here in Leeds and an event I heard about through Leeds Inspired is Leeds Letters which takes place at Dock St Market and people come together to write handwritten letters.
If you could do one thing with the city (without any limitations) what would you do?
I’d make every building in the city have a roof top garden open for everyone to enjoy.