Artist House 45

Artist House 45 was an artist-led-housing project implemented by East Street Arts. The program was an artist-in-residence opportunity in a two bedroom house in Beeston, Leeds, that aimed to have artists engage in the surrounding neighbourhood through their art projects and practices.

East Street Arts was able to provide the residency through collaboration with the Leeds City Council. The house hosted many residencies with various timeframes, ranging from a few months to nearly three years, before the project ended in 2019.

History

East Street Arts developed the pilot project, combining affordable housing and artist residencies, in Beeston, Leeds in 2015. A vacant back-to-back house, owned by the Leeds City Council, served as the primary residence for artists to live and work in the neighbourhood. The project partnered with Leeds Empties, an organization committed to minimizing vacant and unoccupied homes in Leeds. The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation also assisted with grant funding. The project was greenlit for the property to be rented from the Leeds City Council for 5 years.

An open call for an artist residency encouraged artists with a socially engaged practice to apply. The first artists moved into the residence in January 2015. Each residency varied over the duration of the pilot project, starting out with year-long stays, to shorter month-long stays.

The project supported artists with bursaries as they created work in a new city and environment. The goal of the project was to build relationships between artists and local residents to positively impact the neighbourhood through community involvement and shared experiences.

Residencies / Participants

Lloyd-Wilson

Artists Toby Lloyd and Andrew Wilson were the first residents of Artist House 45, taking on a year-long residency. However, they lived as artists-in-residence for almost three years, from January 2015 to October 2017. Together, the artists are known as Lloyd-Wilson and have been collaborating before the residency as well. At Artist House 45, they completed six projects: Community BBQ (2016), AH45 Inside (2015-18), 1AH45 Outside (2015-16), Broadcast Bartender (2015), What Is An Art? (2015) and Trajectory of the everyday #5 (2015). The work focused on the physical space the house was in and how it affected their practice and methodologies.

Portraits of the Street

Portraits of the Street was a series of artists and researchers who inhabited the house from May 2018 to April 2019. Each developed a ‘portrait’ of the house and neighbourhood. Contributors included Jonathan Orleck and unnamed others.

Sophie + Kerri

Artists Sophie Chapman and Kerri Jefferis were the second residents of the house, which they inhabited between May to September 2019. During their residency they created Idle Acts (2019), Rowland Road Working Mens Club (2019) and Chewing the Fat: Play Act Cards (PAC), (2020). This project is a card game that is based on improv and micro role-play, and is inspired by prompts from Artist House 45’s neighborhood and takes inspiration from their film Idle Acts.

Community engagement

Beeston Green Patch (2015-2017)

Early into their residency, Lloyd-Wilson became very engaged in the maintenance of the residential area’s nature, they partnered with the Beeston Green Patch to preserve the green in the neighbourhood, and formed connections with Beeston’s residents as they did so.

Trajectory of the Everyday

Lloyd-Wilson were able to work with the community’s local paper, South Leeds Life, and release their own section, Called Trajectory of the Everyday, within it while they lived in the neighbourhood. The pieces included both discussion about the neighbourhood and cohabitating, and accompanying artworks.

Broadcast Bartender/Project Radio (2015)

Broadcast Bartender (2015) was the result of Lloyd-Wilson wanting to make their own third place, they set up a space with a bar and some seating and invited people they called “Guest Bartenders” to serve drinks and share their thoughts on mostly neighbourhood related topics that Lloyd-Wilson thought they would be knowledgeable of, in the form of socializing. These scheduled events, which were included as broadcasts for a larger collection of projects Project Radio, were a couple of hours, where guests would talk amongst each other and with the guest bartender. Some guest bartenders were Nick Malayan, and John Wakeman.

Idle Acts (2019)

Idle Acts was a film by Sophie + Kerri that they created during their 2019 residency in Artist House 45. In addition to Artist House 45’s ties with East Street Arts and Leeds City Council, Idle acts collaborated with The Arts Council England, Rowland Working Men’s Club, and Leeds Inspired, with Cinematography and Sound Design by Lou Macnamara and Martha Adebambo respectively. Idle Acts was a four day production depicting snapshots of daily life through a lens of unreality. Sophie + Kerri worked with twelve actors to make Idle Acts.

Rowland Road Working Men’s Club (2019)

A collaboration between Sophie + Kerri and the Rowland Road Working Men’s Club. It was primarily an upkeep and event organizing/participation job for Sophie + Kerri, who wanted to get involved in the maintenance of communal gathering places. Additionally, the two artists painted a mural on concrete for and as a reflection of the club, consisting of many simple overlapping shaped of a crowd of people.

Outcomes

Overall, the project was mainly used in research for Johnathan Orleck’s doctoral thesis, Moving in and Out, or Staying in Bed: Using Multiple Ethnographic Positions and Methods to Study Artist-Led Housing as a Critical Spatial Practice at the University of Huddersfield, published 2021. The thesis explores artist-led housing, both in the perspective of an artwork and in terms of the housing market; it uses Artist House 45 as its main study. Orleck started the project and was also a researcher in residence in May 2018. Other outcomes include the nine official artworks completed by Lloyd-Wilson and Sophie + Kerri.