The biennial Compass Festival in Leeds, a ten-day programme of live art encounters and interaction returns this week. Artistic Directors Annie Lloyd and Peter Reed promise an ‘Extensive City Centre takeover’ following the 2016 festival which attracted nearly 10,000 artists, participants and onlookers.
Compass 2018 is a ten-day programme of live art encounters and interactions
Compass 2018 opens on Friday, November 16 with Simon Persighetti and Katie Etheredge’s Public House in which stories are told, and the city mapped out via customised pint glasses. Through a beer glass lens, inscriptions, diagrams, maps, conversational fragments and invitations explore the varied landscape of the city. Artist collective Redhawk Logistica captures the moment and mood via electronic voting booths, reflecting on personal and existential themes. Results are displayed on giant, illuminated boards. By way of contrast, lawyer-turned artist Jack Tan reimagines a working but ‘moot’ Animal Court in four Legs Good. Leeds Town Hall’s Victorian courtroom plays host to Tan’s signature take on the revival of medieval animal trials. Cases are brought against and by live animals including dogs, sheep and crayfish while and the public can either reside on the jury or sit and watch from the public gallery.
Elsewhere, Bethany Wells provides her sauna-based WARMTH installation, Scottee addresses contemporary isolation in Would Like to Meet, Debbie Kent and Alisa Oleva invite visitors to reshape the city in The Demolition Project and Sarah Caputo & Brenda Unwin present 1000 Handshakes at Leeds City Bus Station.
Prolific duo French & Mottershead take audiences on water taxis as they examine the body’s afterlife inWaterborne, asking participants to imagine and relocate their own body underwater as it dissolves and dislocates on a journey from a canal, into the river then out to sea. Supported by The Wellcome Trust and Arts Council England, French & Mottershead collaborated with forensic anthropologists, ecologists and conservators in developing each piece, researching the minute details of decay to create a series of works that puncture our fear of the unknown.
Compass Festival 2018 is free throughout the programme which continues until Sunday, November 25that various Leeds locations. For more information on artists, events, timings and locations.