Announcing Compass Festival’s 2024 programme

Compass Festival returns 1–30 November 2024 for its seventh edition with a whole month of interactive art across Leeds – and everything’s free or Pay What You Can.

● Join an after-hours communal feast hosted by Ling Tan in Kirkgate Market’s 1904 Hall as part of Leeds’ Low Carbon Chinatown
● Artists SLAP Collective stage ALT+R, a digital wellness spa in Leeds Dock, with a range of interactive ‘treatments’ and classes
● Ellie Harrison and Polite Rebellion invite you to make a ‘chosen family’ tree as part of a participatory installation in Trinity Leeds shopping centre

Discover unexpected experiences in familiar places across Leeds, from communal feasts to meditative moments; introspective workshops to celebratory projections. Unfolding over the whole month of November, the 2024 festival creates moments for reflection and connection.

Compass Festival 2024 begins with its first ever Leeds Sauce Week, working with some of Leeds’ most exciting indie food and drinks spots to put ‘Leeds Sauce’ on the menu. The unique rhubarb ketchup was developed over two years with people all over Leeds and artists Popeye Collective. Head to Fearns on Friday 1 November, 6-8pm for the opening party and a chance to taste this punchy condiment in a special snacks menu.

Artist Melanie Whitehead Smith maps queer joy with projections across Leeds in HERE MARKS THE SPOT; Leeds-based artists Ellie Harrison / Polite Rebellion celebrate our connections and care networks through a chance to make chosen family trees in Loose Ends; and the Leeds-based SLAP Collective create a digital wellness spa in Leeds Dock called ALT+R (pronounced altar), with live performance that reimagines IRL connections re-shaped by internet cultures.

Leeds’ Low Carbon Chinatown is a two-week installation and after-hours Supper Club hosted in Kirkgate Market by Ling Tan. Through collaboration with UK-based East and Southeast Asian migrant communities, Ling Tan works to develop new ‘authentic’ sustainable ways of producing, sourcing and consuming food that evokes joy and memories using science, art and technology.

In Leeds Central Library, Manchester-based artists Quarantine present Building of Spines. Over 7 days, a book is handmade, responding to conversations with people in the library. The book then enters the library’s collection for future readers.

Join artist Alisa Oleva for collective listening walks, tuning into sound stations connected to far away places, and explore themes of migration, identity and belonging.

Amy Lawrence presents SHARING PLATTER at Kirkgate Market, a collaborative food and eating club that brings together a collection of gentle and experimental creative gatherings, curated for women and non-binary people of colour.

Peter Reed, Director, Compass Live Art, says:

‘Compass Festival is all about bringing art to the everyday, bringing people together who might not usually meet, and creating chances for art encounters on the street, on the menu, in the market.

For our seventh edition of the festival we’re presenting eight projects, including four new art works. We’ve worked with local artists and artists from across the country, who in many cases we’ve supported over multiple years as they develop this year’s festival projects.

We can’t wait to see you, and join you in tasting, talking, moving and making at Compass Festival 2024.’

All events are free or Pay What You Can.

For the full programme and booking head to: compassliveart.org.uk/

LISTINGS

Leeds Sauce Week
Opening party: Fearns, 4 The Boulevard, Leeds Dock, LS10 1PZ
Fri 1 Nov, 6–8pm, Pay What You Can
Leeds Sauce Week: Fri 1 – Fri 8 Nov

We’re starting Leeds Sauce Week and Compass Festival 2024 with a party at Fearns.
Join us for a special drink and a snacks menu inspired by Popeye Collective’s Leeds Sauce.

Celebrate the beginning of a whole month of interactive art across Leeds (1–30 November) and the first day of Leeds Sauce Week, a celebration of Leeds’ incredible independent food and drink scene.

Ling Tan
Leeds’ Low Carbon Chinatown
Installation: Unit R, 1904 Hall, Kirkgate Market, LS2 7HY
Mon – Sat, 2–15 Nov, 10am–5pm,
Free, drop-in

Supper Club: Row 5, 1904 Hall, Kirkgate Market, LS2 7HY
Fri 15 Nov, 6.30–8.30pm
Pay What You Can

Addressing the climate crisis through intervening in our food systems, join us for a communal feast that combines data science and Chinese diasporic food culture.

Hosted after-hours in Kirkgate Market, join our one-off Supper Club for a delicious shared meal of low carbon Chinese dishes developed with UK-based East & Southeast Asians.

The Supper Club is preceded by a two-week installation at Kirkgate Market (2–15 Nov), showcasing an experimental food farm and data pop-up store, housing locally grown ingredients that will be used in the communal feast.

Quarantine
Building of Spines
Sat 2 – Sat 9 Nov (excluding Sunday), Mon – Wed 9.30am–8pm | Thu & Fri 9.30am–5pm | Sat 10.30am–4pm
Free, drop-in

Over 7 days in Leeds Central Library, Quarantine artist Kate Daley hand makes a book containing a work of collective fiction based on conversations with people in the library.

The finished book enters the library’s collection for future readers.

Alisa Oleva
Sounds Like Home
Across Leeds – meeting place to be revealed
Sat 16 & Sun 17 Nov, 11am & 3pm
Pay What You Can, book online

Sounds Like Home creates sonic connections to distant hometowns through a series of sound stations.

Join one of the collective listening walks to discover these sounds from far away places, reflecting on ideas of migration, home and belonging.

Ellie Harrison / Polite Rebellion
Loose Ends
Trinity Leeds Shopping Centre
Fri 22 Nov, 3–7.30pm
Sat 23 & Sun 24 Nov, 11am–4pm
Thu 28 & Fri 29 Nov, 3–7.30pm
Sat 30 Nov, 11am–4pm
Free, drop-in

Artist Ellie Harrison invites you to make space for your chosen family tree in this gentle and participatory installation.

Formal family histories and genealogies might not show who really looks after us or who we care for most.

Loose Ends helps us see what our chosen families really look like.

SLAP Collective
Brightside
East Dock, The Boulevard, Leeds Dock, LS10 1LR
Tue 19 – Thu 21 Nov; Tue 26 – Thu 28 Nov
Arrive at 5.45pm for a 6pm start
60min class

Brightside is a ride through a lifetime soundtracked by millennial anthems.

This new workout experience combines the energy of a fitness class with a live dance theatre performance.

SLAP Collective
ALT+R
East Dock, Leeds Dock, LS10 1LR
Thu 21 – Sat 23 Nov & Thu 28 – Sat 30 Nov, 11am–5pm
Free, drop-in and bookable treatments available

ALT+R (pronounced altar) is a digital wellness spa, harnessing the power of the tech you carry with you daily.

SLAP Collective use interactive performance to stage a tech-wellness startup in Leeds Dock.

Choose from a menu of spa treatments influenced by internet cultures, including mobile meditation and cat video therapy.

Melanie Whitehead Smith
HERE MARKS THE SPOT
Across Leeds – full details online
Mon 25 – Wed 27 Nov, 6–7pm
Thu 28 Nov, 6–8pm
Free, drop-in

Made in collaboration with LGBTQ+ people in Leeds, HERE MARKS THE SPOT maps sites of queer joy across the city.

Projections of dancing figures pop up across Leeds, translating personal moments into public celebrations.

The short dance films were made in collaboration with dance artist Melanie Whitehead Smith and local people who shared their experiences of queer joy.

Amy Lawrence
SHARING PLATTER
Kirkgate Market, LS2 7HY
Sat 30 Nov
Register your interest online

Collaborative food and eating club SHARING PLATTER by Amy Lawrence is a collection of gentle and experimental creative gatherings, curated for women and non-binary people of colour, centring relationships to food, identity and pleasure.

This nourishing learning and sharing space will encourage you to eat as messy or as slow as you like, and connect with new people.