Saffron Ward

Burley, Leeds, is synonymous with many things: a large multi-cultural community, red brick houses and student parties, but few would associate the inner-city neighbourhood with sculptural experimentation. Leeds, and West Yorkshire as a whole, has a longstanding connection with ground-breaking sculpture.

Enlivening a historical tale for increasingly distracted viewers, practitioners Chris Alton and Liam Geary Baulch unite for the first time, curating an immersive display at serf, Leeds, which questions how a famous, mournful ballad resonates with socio-political events, past and present. The original poem, written by Dante Gabriel and published by Kelmscott Press (1893-94), recalls how an English vessel carrying heir to the throne, William Adelin, sunk just off English shores on 25 November 1120.

Tentatively knocking on a backdoor in Beeston, a nervous excitement overtook my senses – a feeling not too dissimilar from the moment of meeting my first pet as a child, as I later reflected. This particular feeling was also a concern for Jill McKnight and John Hart as they took to the unusual, multi-textured walls and floor of Bruce Davies’ (and his family’s) basement (BasementArtsProject) to present a collaborative look down memory-lane.