The Messages Across Leeds art project is culminating in a series of exhibitions showcasing 500 postcard-messages created in workshops with community groups across Leeds. The innovative project is the product of a collaboration between degree students and the community education department at Leeds College of Art.
The Lord Mayor will officially open the exhibition series at the Corn Exchange at 3.30pm on Friday the 16 March. As part of the launch art college students will run their biggest open drop-in workshop to date, from 12-3pm inside the Corn Exchange.
Chloe Thompson student on BA(Hons) Visual Communication, said: ‘We’d like to invite shoppers, passersby, in fact anyone who’s in town that day to come in and see the exhibition and create their own postcard message. The workshop is totally free and your work will be exhibited as part of the project.’
As well as an exhibition at the Corn Exchange, students Elvina McCormack, Francesca Greenwood, Katy Chester, Chloe Thompson, Vicky Kortekaas and Claire Selman have organised further exhibitions and workshops in Leeds city centre between the 16- 30 March. Including a vintage bus to be parked in the middle of Briggate, a show reel of participant’s messages played on the big screen in Millennium Square, a taster session at the Ministry of food in Kirkgate Market where postcard messages will be printed on tea towels. And a souvenir book of the postcard-messages to travel around Leeds libraries.
Katy Chester student on BA (Hons) Visual Communication, explained: ‘What’s really great about the exhibitions is that the participants will get to see their postcards displayed in a public space for everyone to see. There have been some really strong messages created and we can’t wait for the public to see them.’
To create the exhibition the students and practitioners spent ten weeks travelling across Leeds with their ‘pop-up’ mobile workshop, working with community groups to make the 500 visual and written messages on display in the public exhibition. Elvina McCormack student on BA (Hons) Visual Communication, said: ‘This was an exciting opportunity for us to roll our sleeves up and bring a taste of the arts to groups that would not usually get involved with such projects. We wanted to bring diverse communities together and encourage people to express themselves and do something different. The project has met its aims and has been more successful than we ever hoped.’
Set up by Marianne Springham Messages Across Leeds is funded by the Skills Funding Agency to find more innovative ways of engaging with groups that find it difficult to access education. Marianne said: ‘The project has enabled us to work with twenty new community based organizations and increase volunteers supporting our community education department by over 200%. We will be looking at ways to keep the project going next year and support smaller organisations in Leeds to use the suitcase workshop to develop their own message projects.’