One thousand Leeds children will be joining the celebration in the next major LEEDS 2023 event, bringing joy and hope to the City.
The last Children’s Day took place sixty years ago in Leeds’ famous Roundhay Park. This year, LEEDS 2023 has been working with local children and artists to reimagine Children’s Day for this year of culture.
Children from twenty primary schools across Leeds have been preparing for ‘Children’s Day: Reimagined’ for weeks, creatively led by arts organisation Fevered Sleep, in collaboration with Young Creatives (eleven 8-14 year olds from across Leeds), award winning British singer and composer, Emily Levy, and York-based textile artist Ingrid Bale.
The 14th July will be the first time the children have met, the day when their combined work will create an epic artistic installation of 1,000 banners that express their dreams, hopes, demands, refusals, fierce joy and wild hope. This snapshot of statements from Leeds children in 2023 will form a striking backdrop to an evening of live performances, food and film, including the first collective performance of a new song, to an anticipated audience of thousands of family, friends and the general public.
A programme of films will be shown, commissioned and chosen by Young Creatives and by Fevered Sleep, including a film created by Leeds-based Studio Bokehgo.
At its height, the original Children’s Day was attended by around 90,000 school children and families in Roundhay Park. Fevered Sleep and the Young Creatives have picked up that mantle and totally reimagined the day with children at the front and centre.
Kully Thiarai, Creative Director and CEO of LEEDS 2023: “We’re now well and truly into Part 2 of our programme with a focus on Playing and what better time to listen to and amplify the voices of our children and young people. Decades ago, Children’s Day was an iconic event in the city created by adults for the school children of Leeds. Today our world is so very different and we wanted to offer our children a major platform to shape an event that enabled them to express themselves fully, taking the same spirit of community and collective endeavour as the original Children’s Day whilst also reimagining it with children at the very heart of that process.
With the support of some of the UK’s leading artists in participatory and collaborative work, Leeds’ children have created an event that we hope will live as long in our memories as the event that inspired it. Their voices loud, heard and amplified by LEEDS 2023 as they express their hopes, dreams and desires for the future.
These young people are our future and I’m excited to see what our world will look like with them in charge for one day.”
Leeds City Council has made a commitment to being the best place in the UK for children and young people to grow up, through its Child Friendly Leeds initiative.
Councillor Jonathan Pryor, Leeds City Council’s executive member for economy, culture and education: “Children’s Day was once part of life in Leeds for so many young people, giving them a unique opportunity to come together and make some incredible and unforgettable memories. As we celebrate the best of culture in Leeds this year, it’s exciting to see this event return in a dynamic, new and innovative form which will engage a whole new generation of our city’s children. Young people should always be at the heart of the cultural activity we create today in the hope that it can inspire them to create a better tomorrow.”
Commissioned and produced by LEEDS 2023, ‘Children’s Day: Reimagined’ is supported by The National Lottery Community Fund, to Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grants programme, Foyle Foundation and FirstBus.
Joe Dobson, Regional Head of Funding for Yorkshire & Humber at The National Lottery Community Fund: “Thanks to National Lottery players, we’re delighted to be able to support Children’s Day: Reimagined in Leeds. The award fits with one of The National Lottery Community Fund’s four key missions, which are to support communities to come together, be environmentally sustainable, help children and young people thrive and enable people to live healthier lives. This is a wonderful opportunity to bring young people from across the West Yorkshire region together to celebrate their future, on what I’m sure will be a very memorable day for all involved.”
Lucy Mottram, Marketing Manager for First Bus in West Yorkshire: “Children’s Day: Reimagined’ promises to be an inspiring and memorable day for visitors, bringing together ideas from young people throughout Leeds. It is the natural event for us to be involved with as it comes from the communities we serve. We’re excited to be a partner in helping the day come alive and encourage everyone to think about sustainable travel to get there.”
Free Tickets are now available here.
Soldiers Field, Roundhay Park on 14 July 2023.
Image by Tom Arber.
