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EAST STREET ARTS

Patrick Studios opened in October 2004 with support from Arts Council England Lottery Funds, SRB (Round 3) and European Regional Development Fund. Since then it’s gone from strength to strength.  All of its 35 studio spaces have been filled with artists at various points in their careers working across a range of disciplines from painting and ceramics to video and installation.

The last year has seen an exciting programme of visual arts events including exhibitions, installations, talks and seminars.

Prior to the building’s official launch, ESA initiated Insite, a partnership project in education to acknowledge the role of the former St Patrick’s Social Club played historically within the local community. The project brought together a range of partners to deliver a series of workshops with young people based in the area to celebrate the past, present and future of the building.

In October, The Project Space (located on the first floor) hosted Les Bigg’s ‘Wunderkammer’ as part of Coal Salt Tin, a nationwide artist-led project exploring how identity and location are affected by economic change at a time of transition from an industrial to a post-industrial economy.

To coincide with the official launch of Patrick Studios, ESA commissioned a piece of artwork to hang on the Gable End of the building overlooking York Road. This marked the start of a regularly changing series of art works on the Gable End of Patrick Studios - the first one awarded to Yorkshire based artist Rose Clout.

In November and December no part of the building was left untouched as artist in residence, Pippa Hale, located a series of site-specific installations over 3 floors.  Since January 2003 she had been researching key issues around the building, looking at its location and environment, its history as an Irish Catholic social club and interviewing previous users. The exhibition located objects recovered from the old club such and reintroduced them into their former locations in the refurbished interior; salvaged speakers on the ground and first floors played recordings of previous users reminiscing about events that took place there; and the stage reappeared to site and scale filling the Project Space.

The Project Space hosted Republic in May 2005, the umbrella title for six artists’ projects drawn together for Situation Leeds, a festival celebrating artists’ responses to the public realm. Each project investigated aspects of urban development, community, history, cityscape and geography to uncover new and sometimes dormant
aspects of Burmantofts.

More recently artists who have workspace at Patrick Studios have been using the project space to explore new work, engage an informed audience and raise the profile of their practice. Emma Bolland showed ‘Sylvia Sylvia’ in October featuring a double video projection showing the same syncopated footage of someone running through woodland juxtaposed with ‘Wood,’ an installation of 100 crime novels arranged in a circle on the floor illuminated by a several reading lights. For one night only in November, Nichola Pemberton hosted ‘Speed Friendships’, a fully participatory event based around the idea and structure of speed dating that questioned systems of dating and issues around societal isolation. Throughout December and January Paul Miller will stage ambitious multiple timeline animations of his own paintings, drawings and photographs onto a translucent inner lining in The Project Space.

Professional development remains at the heart of ESA’s core activities. Over the summer all studio holders took part in a new professional development course EATS (Enterprising Artist Training Sessions). Funded by NTI (New Technologies Institute) EATS nourished artists with bespoke business knowledge and professional skills enabling them to thrive in a very specific and competitive market.

The future for ESA is looking bright. The organization will be looking to consolidate its existing studio provision over the next 12 months whilst at the same time developing new work spaces. ESA continues to listen to the city’s artists and to respond to their needs (training, exhibitions, advocacy, selling and studios) whilst at the same time advocating opportunities and artists’ rights at a political level both regionally and nationally.