Residency / 2015 - 17

Artist House 45 was an artist residency based in a two-bedroom back-to-back terrace located in Beeston, South Leeds.

Initiated by East Street Arts the first residents were Toby Lloyd and Andrew Wilson (Lloyd-Wilson) who lived in Artist House 45 full-time for almost three years (January 2015 – October 2017) as artists in residence.

Providing space and support for artists to live and work Artist House 45 explored the possible mutual benefits of artist-led practices located within a residential neighbourhood outside of conventional exhibition, studio and other established ‘artworld’ structures.

Examples of projects and activity that Lloyd-Wilson developed throughout their three year residency within Artist House 45 include:

Trajectory of the Everyday:

Trajectory of the Everyday was a regular feature made by Lloyd-Wilson exclusively for the monthly print edition of South Leeds Life.

The intention was to provoke conversation by playfully challenging ideas, concepts and beliefs of daily routines, social boundaries and shared space. Acting as a regular series of ‘incomplete diagrams’ the content regularly included direct quotes from conversations with neighbours alongside other content from existing published literature or news content.

South Leeds Life is a community newspaper and online blog written, produced and funded by residents living in South Leeds.  

Amp & Deck’s Saturday Night Tape Play:

Hosted sometimes from the installed kitchen bar at Artist House 45 and sometimes from Basement Arts Project (across the street), the punningly titled Amp and Deck invited neighbours, colleagues and guests to dig out their vinyl or cassettes and play them back in good company.

Amp & Deck often tied in with the exhibition programme at Basement Arts Project to create an evening of cultural activity in an otherwise often overlooked area of South Leeds.

What is an Art?:

What is an Art? was an installed billboard, publication and facilitated questionnaire created for Beeston Festival in the summer of 2015. After moving into Artist House 45 in January 2015 artists Toby Lloyd and Andrew Wilson had several conversations with their immediate neighbours about ‘art’, what it is, and what it can (and cannot) achieve.

At Beeston Festival these conversations were opened up to a far broader audience via this playful installation and the interactions it encouraged.

Project Radio:

The very first iteration of Broadcast Bartender took place from &Model in Leeds’ City Centre as part of Project Radio, an exhibition and online radio broadcast imagined by artists Marion Harrison and Sophie Mallett in 2015.

For the exhibition Lloyd-Wilson installed a ‘public house’ environment in the back room which hosted four recorded conversations. These events invited 5x Guest-Drinkers and 1x Guest-Bartender to talk freely on a specific theme for approximately 2hrs. Once completed these conversations were released as a radio broadcasts.

Themes for discussion were inspired by many of the predicaments Lloyd-Wilson were encountering as residents in South Leeds, and each recording invited neighbouring residents from South Leeds to contribute.