Loop Arts Fair

Loop Arts Fair
June 17th, 18th & 19th
WORK, TALK, PLAY

www.looparts.co.uk
Updates on Twitter: @loopartsfair

Marshalls Mill, Holbeck Urban Village

First of all I’d like to introduce Culture Vulture readers to our competition to win a weekend pass.
Simply Tell us what you’re most looking forward to at Loop Arts Fair – comment below. Best comment wins – announced Wed 15th June.

June 17th-19th sees the launch of the first LOOP Arts Fair in Leeds. For one weekend a selection of the UK’s most exciting and original contemporary illustrators, graphic designers and applied artists will be relocating to Leeds, transforming Marshalls Mill, made available bu Igloo Regeneration and the Holbeck Urban Village into working studios, print shops, publishing houses and workshops.

Curated by Jay Cover of design collective Nous Vous, LOOP Arts Fair is the first applied arts weekender of its kind in the north of England. Holbeck Urban Village has gained a reputation as a desirable area for creative companies and an area renowned for innovation from an age when the area served as a powerhouse of the industrial revolution in Leeds. Jay Cover picks up this theme: ‘applied arts act as a catalyst for social evolution, responding to ever changing social, environmental and economic concerns. The artists are dynamic innovators.’

We’re pleased to announce that James Jarvis will be headlining our series of talks on Friday. I’m personally very very excited about this – James is such an important artist and a great inspiration in the world of image making.

We have an amazing line-up of artists and are really pleased to be bringing them to Leeds. This event is a must for all those interested in visual arts. It’ll also be a great family event – lots for kids to do and get involved in.

Jay’s exclusive event insights:

Image Credit: ‘Herbal’ for V&A museum, London. By Sister Arrow
• Sister Arrow will be making a participatory paper plant greenhouse, encouraging visitors to get involved in creating paper plants to contribute to an ever growing nursery, participants will be rewarded with a certificate. I think this’ll create a really lovely aesthetic, super green! She’s really very eager for people to come and get involved – making the greenhouse large and lovely, fun thing for kids to get involved in too.

Image Credit:  MatthewTheHorse (Matt Hodson)

• MatthewTheHorse is giving a calligraphy class, showing people how to write words in interesting ways. The words written and contributed will be added to a poetry wall that constantly re-arranges and develops over the weekend. I love Matt’s poems and I love Matt writing’s – so this’ll be a right treat. I imagine this’ll be filled with wit and humor, rounded off with a demonstration of Matt’s awesome visual magic.

• Yoke Books are providing a print service for other artists, making postcards, prints and publications live at the event. They’ll also have a play area where people can interact with some of the works – live collage. Bruce (Yoke Books) will charm your socks off, he’s the most enthusiastic person, I’m thinking this will be a good example of how independent publishing works, but will be very accessible and friendly. Total fun time!

Image Credit: Above – Jez Burrows / Below – Lizzy Stewart

• Jez Burrows & Lizzy Stewart will be battling it out (art in action) in their symmetrical space. Loop will Also serve as an exclusive launch for the latest ‘Sing Statistics‘ publication. A book featuring an array of awesome writers and illustrators. Extremely excited that they’re launching it at the event. I’ve been following Jez & Lizzy (creepy?!) for a few years and have always admired their work, we’ve been involved in a number of things together here and there too, very friendly, humble folk.

Image Credit: Qubik

• Qubik are tying up their multitude of works – creating a constellation out of graphic works and found objects. He’ll be creating some mega big prints to purchase. Joe’s (Qubik) work is really fascinating – he has such a strong visual style, often using algorithms to create visual works, beautiful and very well considered graphic imagery. He has many strings to his bow, creating sound installations that follow a similar process – all in all extremely interesting.

• Catalogue are working on a ‘made to order’ service – offering products where the customer can choose from a range of paper and see the boys make the product for you. These witty chaps are a great example of a close collaboration in action, their collaborative work is really cohesive and they’re doing a great job of contributing to Leeds visual landscape, creating extremely inviting promotional material for events. I also commissioned them to produce create the branding and promotional material for Loop.

• Analogue Books are setting up shop with all their lovely stock. I’ve been a fan of everything Analogue do and what they stand for as long as I’ve been interested in graphic art. They have really helped support artists by exhibiting and stocking artists goods. The most interesting thing, from my point of view is how they have become a ‘go to’ place for inspiration and ideas.

Image Credit: ‘Champ’, Tokyo Police Club Album Cover, Nous Vous

• Nous Vous. We’ll be selling some ‘Fresh Ones’, handmade objects for everyday living. As well as that we’ll be scouting the riverside and industrial areas around Marshalls Mil finding bits of wood to make paintings / originals for people to purchase and observe us making.

Image Credit: TOY – Umbro headquarters

• TOY are coming down to use the space as a studio, there’ll be all sorts of Ad-Hoc activity happening throughout the event. They will be inviting people to come and hang out with them while they work. TOY I have been aware of for a long time, starting off as a humble ‘illustration label’, which I thought was a very unique and interesting way of looking at illustration. Now they’ve grown into an illustration agency – representing an array of absolutely amazing artists. Even if we had one or two of their artists on their own it’d be amazing – but there’s going to be six of them in residence – crazy!

TALK (Talks & Discussions)
Friday 17th June
– 6.30pm – James Jarvis
– 4.30pm – TOY – Roundtable
– 3pm – Lizzy Stewart
– 1.30pm – Qubik
– 12pm – Drew Millward

Sunday 19th June
– 2.30pm Jez Burrows
– time TBC – Jon Boam & MatthewTheHorse ‘Spirit Of The Animal’ presentation

PLAY (evening events)
Friday 17th – Best Joined Up – from 7.30pm (Live drawing / Music)
Saturday 18th – LIMN – from 7.30pm (Live drawing / music
Sunday 19th – Kibbo-Kift – from 7.30pm (storytelling / music / poetry)

Buying tickets online is essential – advance tickets are cheaper!

Advance tickets
Friday – £10 / £7 (concession)
Saturday – £7 / £5 (concession)
Sunday – £7 / £5 (concession)

On the door
Friday £12
Saturday / Sunday £10

– book advance tickets here: http://www.looparts.co.uk/tickets/

Hope to see you there!

JC / NV