Contemporary Art — BasementArtsProject

Hit The Deck! Doors Closing,Lift Going Down…

Ian Thomson reflects on the nature of his sound work ‘Underground Lift’ and the connection between the inner ear and the Holbeck interchange.

‘Lost Portals’ continues at BasementArtsProject until Friday 26th April. There will also be a Lunchtime Conversation event on this day.

Junction: a point where two or more things are joined.

Residents of South Leeds may remember Silvia Liebig from her time spent here in 2019, just before the outbreak of the pandemic. As part of East Streets Arts long running Artist House 45 residency project (2015-19), that also included Lloyd&Wilson, She was a resident of the house during 2019.

Excavating The Future

The unusual texture of printed plastic, slightly warped due to AI filling in gaps, allow onlookers to discern between works cast in pewter and jesmonite. These ‘copies’ of works usually guarded behind glass evoke cultural memory yet leave viewers with a sense of remembrance just out of reach

A Tale of Three Birthdays (and some reminiscences)

2023 was, for me, a tale of two birthdays. It was the year that I turned fifty-one and resigned from my job of nineteen years with the Henry Moore Institute. It also represented thirty-four years, to the day, since I took on my first proper job, beyond a paper round, with Sainsbury’s.

Have You Left Yet? Notes from the outside

I have always considered a mix of experience and enthusiasm in the programme to be a healthy thing, as experience riffs off enthusiasm and vice versa.

Jacob's Ladder: an impact report of sorts

Whilst I always understood that Jacob’s Ladder would be a labour of love for both myself, as BasementArtsProject: the commissioning organisation, and for sculptor Keith Ackerman, I knew that it would definitely take longer than the one-hundred days of the Yorkshire Sculpture International 2019. But we never imagined the three year odyssey that it would become thanks to the C***d pandemic lockdowns.

Underground with Sharon McDonagh: An Eye For Detail

Having worked as a Police Forensic Artist, McDonagh’s current practice is not too far removed from a world in which the gaps in reality are filled in by imagination. She has moved her attention from the world of reconstructing human identities for the purpose of identification, to the reconstruction of abandoned human habitation through architecture and found objects.

Looking To The Future: Emily

For the last few months I have been in discussion with artist Paul Digby about his latest sculpture project ‘Looking To The Future: Emily’, and talking about BasementArtsProject’s position as co-creator on it.

Entering the decompression chamber and a new era

Beneath the surface of the locked down world the oxygen is running low. The tiny life support capsules sustaining our presence in the airless vacuum of millions of hard-drives, can only sustain three dimensional life for so long. It is time to head for the surface, but not too rapidly.

Abandonment Issues and the Language of Art

So how do we get past the problem of perception, access and desire. Life is about dialogue, that is how we learn. We educate ourselves through experience, we find the edge of our zone of comfort and understanding and we push past it, through to what lies beyond.

Art From The Ground Up: Not Letting Culture Lose!

So, 2023 is still a thing; by which I mean Leeds2023. Despite the fact that Brexit put paid to any opportunity for UK cities to present their wares on a European stage, Leeds has committed itself to ensuring that 2023 remains an important year for the city in terms of culture; despite the funding and exposure being cut off by political dispute.

Back To Life, Back To Reality

When we lose a sense of purpose we lose our sense of the future, and that is where hopelessness slips into the void and feeds our deepest fears. That is the point at which the sun sets never to rise again.

Lockdown Journal: Dortmund Edition [Yol]

During the Lockdown I received an update from the studio of Yol, and just before I left another video update arrived in which he appeared to be trapped inside the Coronaverse. I shall leave you with his emergency transmission.

Lockdown Journal: Dortmund Edition [Travelogue 05]

At the studio in which I have spent the last four days, I pack up my things for the final time and prepare to head for the Torhaus. Today is the opening of the exhibition ‘Meine Welt Auf Corona’ and as soon as it is done I have to head back to the station so that I can catch my train home.

Lockdown Journal: Dortmund Edition [Travelogue 04]

Today is essentially a free day. With the exhibition now fully installed and all of the tech stuff working properly, I can spend the day taking in some art elsewhere. I have arranged to meet Sylvia and Christiane at the Dusseldorf U building.

Lockdown Journal: Dortmund Edition [Lou Hazelwood]

Moving out of lockdown, the world is opening up, a chasm to be filled by STEM courses at Universities where the arts are systematically destroyed in an attempt to keep the economy going.

Lockdown Journal: Dortmund Edition [Travelogue 03]

Thursday 22nd October

Today I am meeting Viennese artists Christiana Spatt and Maria Hanl at the Torhaus. Maria’s work is a film piece and has already been installed, Christiane is a painter and photographer and her work is the final piece in the Corona jigsaw.

Lockdown Journal: Dortmund Edition [Adekola]

Yesterday in a special edition of the Lockdown Journal, we updated you on the status of the ‘Compressed Time Frames’ exhibition by ArtCouple, and today I bring you some material by Abdullah Adekola, poet and founder of the Black led and Leeds based poetry collective ‘Say It. With Your Chest’. We hope to be working with Adekola in the very near future, watch this space.

Lockdown Journal: Dortmund Edition [Travelogue 02]

The city streets do not seem to be very busy with cars. There is a hire system for electric scooters, they are everywhere and people just leave them parked at the edge of the pavement. Bikes are also popular. Dortmund feels like a city with an environmental conscience.

Lockdown Journal: Dortmund Edition [ArtCouple]

Man is not rational; only what encompasses him is intelligent

For invitations to our Exhibitions and Events

BasementArtsProject
28 Back Burton Terrace
Beeston, Leeds, LS11 5JH