The seventh edition of Compass Festival offers a whole month of interactive art across Leeds – and everything’s free or Pay What You Can.
Join an after-hours communal feast hosted by Ling Tan in Kirkgate Market’s 1904 Hall as part of Leeds’ Low Carbon Chinatown – Artists SLAP Collective stage ALT+R, a digital wellness spa in Leeds Dock, with a range of interactive ‘treatments’ and classes – Ellie Harrison and Polite Rebellion invite you to make a ‘chosen family’ tree as part of a participatory installation in Trinity Leeds shopping centre.
Discover unexpected experiences in familiar places across Leeds, from communal feasts to meditative moments; introspective workshops to celebratory projections. Unfolding over the whole month of November, the 2024 festival creates moments for reflection and connection.
Compass Festival 2024 begins with its first ever Leeds Sauce Week, working with some of Leeds’ most exciting indie food and drinks spots to put ‘Leeds Sauce’ on the menu. Theunique rhubarb ketchup was developed over two years with people all over Leeds and artists Popeye Collective. Head to Fearns on Friday 1 November, 6-8pm for the opening party and a chance to taste this punchy condiment in a special snacks menu.
Artist Melanie Whitehead Smith maps queer joy with projections across Leeds in HERE MARKS THE SPOT; Leeds-based artists Ellie Harrison / Polite Rebellion celebrate our connections and care networks through a chance to make chosen family trees in Loose Ends; and the Leeds-based SLAP Collective create a digital wellness spa in Leeds Dock called ALT+R (pronounced altar), with live performance that reimagines IRL connections re-shaped by internet cultures.
Leeds’ Low Carbon Chinatown is a two-week installation and after-hours Supper Club hosted in Kirkgate Market by Ling Tan. Through collaboration with UK-based East and Southeast Asian migrant communities, Ling Tan works to develop new ‘authentic’ sustainable ways of producing, sourcing and consuming food that evokes joy and memories using science, art and technology.
In Leeds Central Library, Manchester-based artists Quarantine present Building of Spines. Over 7 days, a book is handmade, responding to conversations with people in the library. The book then enters the library’s collection for future readers.
Join artist Alisa Oleva for collective listening walks, tuning into sound stations connected to far away places, and explore themes of migration, identity and belonging.
Amy Lawrence presents SHARING PLATTER at Kirkgate Market, a collaborative food and eating club that brings together a collection of gentle and experimental creative gatherings, curated for women and non-binary people of colour.
Peter Reed, Director, Compass Live Art,:
“Compass Festival is all about bringing art to the everyday, bringing people together who might not usually meet and creating chances for art encounters on the street, on the menu, in the market. For our seventh edition of the festival we’re presenting eight projects, including four new art works. We’ve worked with local artists and artists from across the country, who in many cases we’ve supported over multiple years as they develop this year’s Festival projects. We can’t wait to see you and join you in tasting, talking, moving and making at Compass Festival 2024.”
All events are free or Pay What You Can.
For the full programme and booking head to: compassliveart.org.uk/
