Bramley Baths, Broad Lane, Bramley, Leeds LS13 3DF
Saturday 20th & Sunday 21st October 3pm-7pm – FREE
Organisers of the annual I Love West Leeds Festival are inviting local people to take a breathtaking underwater photographic journey at historic Bramley Baths in Leeds on Saturday 20th & Sunday 21st October between 3pm and 7pm.
Back in 2011 the Festival held a very unusual classical music concert, featuring the West Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra playing Handel’s Water Music from a stage in the middle of the baths. Leeds-based photographer Lizzie Coombes captured the event in a series of incredible photographs which will be mounted underwater around the sides of the pool for swimmers to enjoy. They will also be able to hear Handel’s Water Music being played whenever their heads are submerged.
Festival Director Jane Earnshaw hopes that the public will be intrigued:
“Through Lizzie’s eyes we see the whole event, from underwater images of how a stage is built in a swimming pool right through to the concert itself” explained Jane. “I think this is probably the first time that a photographic exhibition has been staged under water in a public swimming pool, along with the music that inspired it.”
The Friends of Bramley Baths are working with the I Love West Leeds Festival for this special event and will be offering free tours of the pump room, mini-fitness sessions in the fitness room, and free 10 minute taster sessions in the Russian Steam Room, as well as inviting visitors to share their ideas for ways that Bramley Baths could be used innovatively alongside the regular programme of health and fitness, when the Friends take over and re-open the Baths as a social enterprise on 1 January 2013.
Tickets for the underwater exhibition are free but capacity is limited. Festival organisers are offering tea and cakes and tours of the building for anyone who has to wait to get in the pool. Tickets are available online from www.watermusic.eventbrite.com or from Bramley Baths, Broad Lane, Bramley, Leeds LS13 3DF on 0113 214 6000 – or simply turn up on the day, but you may have to eat cake and wait your turn!