I live about a mile from the town centre and walk in most days. It’s an easy enough route; turn left out of the door, turn right when you hit Armley road, turn left when the road runs out, then turn right as soon as you see the bright lights of the big city.
This might seem boring. A journey you could make with your eyes shut. But, as I hope to show, it’s a walk that will keep you alert, engaged, entertained and on your toes if only you know how to look. Take your mind off the next step in front of you for an instant and you are likely to get flattened by a truck – or worse.
There’s always something new to see. Here’s the latest bricolage on the steps leading down to Armley Road; a still life with beer cans in a bag and Lego.
In the past few months this space has treated us to exhibits that rival anything you’d see in the Henry Moore; my personal favourite was “Two Window Frames and a Brick”, a witty and profoundly moving piece on the degradation of personal privacy in the age of social media. I wasn’t as impressed by the “Torched Settee With Shit Stained Cushions” that replaced it… seen it before so many times, a bit of a cliche if you ask me. Still, the opening was lively and the Special Brew flowed like wine.
Only yards away there’s the offshoot installation space, currently featuring “Mattress (single)”.
Brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it? Move over Tracey Emin! I especially like the Dadaist dandelions.
There are many smaller, more intimate, artworks along the way, several of them sponsored by a local food outlet.
I don’t know which Moe is the art lover, but well done! I’m looking forward to his ongoing curatorial efforts, I’m sure we’ll be experiencing some great things going forwards.
Large, publicly funded art, is plentiful along the route too.
Take this recently installed (perhaps that’s the wrong word) bus stop, which amusingly omits the obvious “bus stop”.
Painted green – the buses go right by you! It’s quite a special experience, repeated on the hour every hour (if you want to catch the Number 85) till ten o’ clock, every day but Sunday. Try it, you’ll laugh out loud.
Best of all is the ludicrously ingenious, existentially aggravating, “Cross Road to Nowhere”.
Brilliantly subverting the bourgeois normativity of actual people wanting to cross an actual road.
Richard Long, eat your heart out!
There are numerous spontaneous artistic interventions along the route too, enough to keep one’s aesthetic appreciation pinging like a metal detector that’s sensed a car crash.
Most days provide a couple of these glass arrangements on the passenger window side,
And there’s always a feast of comical double yellow line provocations; truly testing the boundaries of social acceptability.
Some of my favourite site specific commissions play with the idea of seeing/being seen, such as this where the pedestrian barrier obscures you seeing the cars and the cars from seeing you,
This where the same function is provided by an advertising display,
And my favourite here, where you can’t see traffic coming along a busy road at a pedestrian crossing owing to a huge “Turn” sign.
Splendid derangement of all sense evidenced here, it makes me sob with unalloyed joy every time I have to cross.
Perhaps the piece that I find most fun at the moment is this; notice the clever position of three completely pointless notices slap in the middle of a narrow pavement? Priceless.
You don’t get that level of attention to utmost inconvenience in any old city…
It’s not just objects in the street that draw attention. Often the streets themselves are positively rocking with suspect surfaces that demand careful consideration.
Many are cracked, uneven, and beautifully irregular
And many, such as this in the centre of town, are so delightfully deformed that after a bit of rain they’ll fill your shoes with deliciously refreshing puddle water and startle you into the aesthetic wonderment that is pedestrian Leeds…
Perhaps this is the reason Leeds is so full of barriers… pedestrians, restrain yourselves!
Never let me hear anyone question that walking into town isn’t an absolute treat!
What a fabulous treat – I tend to walk along the canal rather than this wonderfully arduous route – it is a must try…
Ah yes. You must live very close to me. I’ve enjoyed that walk into town for many years (although it’s actually about 2 miles – I’ve measured it when I’ve cycled, with me little bike mileometer). The ” still life with beer cans in a bag and Lego” is a particular joy. But I’ve recently changed my route, so instead of breathing in the truck fumes and the aroma of Tradpak on Armley Road, I nip down Pickering Street, and Canal Road then onto the towpath. It’s a little bit further – takes about 10 minutes longer to get to work – but I get birdsong instead of engines. Still get the stink of Tradpak though – those new houses across the canal must love that.
It takes around 25 mins to saunter from the prison to the Town Hall… What gets me most about the fly tipping is that 15 seconds away there’s a small park with 4 bins, always emptied every week.
Awesomely awesome awesomeness