Calling Leeds Artists for an exciting new billboard commission in the city
To celebrate Arts Council Collection’s latest touring exhibition, Found Cities, Lost Objects curated by Lubaina Himid CBE and on display until 21 April 2024, Leeds Art Gallery is inviting submissions from Leeds-based artists to create a billboard artwork or design.
Found Cities, Lost Objects encourages us to view the urban environment through the eyes of women and gender non-conforming artists. It acknowledges the privileges which allow some people to roam freely, while also considering the boundaries that may curb the experiences of others. Leeds and Yorkshire-based artists feature, together with works from the Leeds Art Gallery and the Arts Council Collection. At its heart, this exhibition encourages conversations between audiences and artists and exchanging observations, memories and imaginings to give us all a greater sense of self. It encourages us to consider our own relationships with the city and how we navigate it, in the past, present and future.
In response to the exhibition, Leeds Art Gallery is inviting artistic responses to the themes of the exhibition in the context of the vibrant, multicultural city of Leeds. Submissions are invited from artists currently living or working in Leeds or who have previously lived in the area for a substantial period of time. The project welcomes submissions from those who identify as female or gender non-conforming for this commission and encourage those who are from global majority and/or disabled, in recognition of the systemic and current lack of diversity in the arts.
Three artworks will be selected to be displayed on a series of 12-sheet street-level billboards located around Leeds in April 2024. There may also be a possibility for the work to appear as vinyls within key locations in the city centre (TBC). The fee for each artist commission is £1,200 for a ‘ready to print’ design and artists must be available to participate in a talk chaired by Lubaina Himid and other billboard artists, date to be confirmed but likely to be programmed in late March or April.
Submission deadline: 5pm on 7 March 2024
Fee: £1200 per artist (three artists)