Compass Festival Announces 2021 Programme

The interactive festival's fifth edition returns offers six thought provoking, moving and playful projects staged from 19 March and throughout 2021. Three projects and a podcast series are added to the programme which is announced today (Tuesday 9 February 2021). Those projects are Amy Sharrocks' The Ballad of Crown Point Bridge, Closed Forum's Anxiety Arcade and Lucy Heyhoe's One In, One Out.

Since the beginning of lockdown in March 2020, Compass has been working closely with artists fully supporting them as they progress and adapt their commissions to meet the challenge of staging work during the coronavirus pandemic. The festival is spreading its activities throughout 2021 allowing audiences to experience them as intended where possible.

Projects will take place in a range of covid safe settings including a bridge beside a canal, a shopping arcade, an indoor market, a purpose built space and the city's streets themselves. Taking you on a journey around Leeds, the festival largely takes place outside and can be explored alone, in small groups or from home.

Festival co-director Annie Lloyd said: "Now more than ever we are indebted to the imagination of artists as they bring joy and remind us of our common humanity. This programme features work from a range of artists working in various mediums from the digital sphere to interacting with the natural environment. Through these works, the artists celebrate the power of community, our resilience and adaptability. We are delighted to offer this invitation to experience each of these projects which we hope will allow audiences to be playful and creative in everyday public spaces once more.

"Adaptability has become important, not just for Compass as a festival, but for the world at large. In light of the changing circumstances, the festival will look a little different in 2021. In March, we'll welcome you to the festival opener Pick Me Up (and hold me tight) as well as an engaging series of podcasts to enjoy at home.

"As we go forward into 2021, we'll announce further details of the works taking place then, meaning you won't have to cram your Compass fix into the usual 10 days. Works will take place across Leeds city centre, many of which can be explored alone or in your bubble. Join us from March onwards as we, as a community, begin to safely gather together again after such a long time apart."

The Compass Podcast series opens the festival alongside ZU-UK's Pick Me Up (& hold me tight). Produced by Leeds based station Sable Radio and hosted by Pam Johnson, The Compass Podcast is released weekly from 26th March. Topics include:

The relationship between mental health and modern life: changes in the fabric of our communities, the shrinking of public space and contact between fellow humans is the subject of ZU-UK's Pick Me Up (& hold me tight) podcast.

Demi Nandhra discusses protest, mental health and collective sadness in Sick and Tired with panellists Amahra Spence, Suriya Aisha and Toni-Dee Paul.

Lucy Heyhoe and guests Ray Larman, Amelia Cavallo and Cassie Leon discuss the disappearance, evolution and digitalisation of queer entertainment, performance and social spaces in Drag, Dance and disco: What is the future of Queer Space?

Popeye Collective's recipe for Mushy Pea Chaat (make it at home as you listen) will guide their podcast conversation; charting personal histories, unpicking colonial pasts and how all of this can impact on our vision of culture, community, and ultimately, art.

The Ballad of Crown Point Bridge is a sonic artwork by artist Amy Sharrocks and sound designer Tom Hackley exploring the people and water of Leeds. Crown Point Bridge is where the water of the River Aire and its wild life meet the canalised city water and where on the dark underside of the bridge, the reactions to the assault of city life are graphically vocalised in spray paint.

The Leeds & Liverpool Canal is the longest line of concrete enclosure of UK water. Depending on your view, the shoreline of this canal could be seen as a perilous carving out, an incredible engineering feat or a vast act of partition and control, enabling the extraction of natural resources.

Working with groups from the Leeds community including charities, swimmers, young people and graffiti artists and remembering those who made the underside of the bridge their home, Amy Sharrocks will gather personal stories and recollections of the bridge and of water. These words will be channelled back to us as we walk through the underside of the bridge. Between their words and the water, perhaps we can negotiate a different social contract between the people, the city and the water.

Anxiety Arcade is a full-sized arcade machine which will be located in Leeds city centre. The project, by Closed Forum, is a love letter to 80s pop culture and classic video games. Looking at anxiety through the lens of those that experience it, Anxiety Arcade uses an innovative and fun concept to get people talking about mental health, rather than trying to solve it. Anxiety Arcade is a digital space that allows you to reset and take a break from everything in your world. Explore a virtual world where each room is a song in an album and every puzzle unlocks more mystery.

Created by artist Lucy Hayhoe, One in, One out: Leeds's Smallest Gay Bar is a playful interactive installation exploring the role of the gay bar in contemporary queer culture. The project asks what we want to preserve and what we want to change as we reflect on a year that has presented huge threats to the existence of queer spaces which occupy a unique position in our cities. As the needs of the queer community change, and we grow more aware of intersecting identities - is the gay bar part of the future of queer space?

One in, One Out explores nostalgia for lost LGBTQIA+ scenes, the consumption of queer space as novelty and what it means to be queer and alone.

As a further response to the changing restrictions, Compass Festival are introducing a new strand which will allow those not ready to venture into public spaces to continue to enjoy aspects of the festival. A series of four podcasts aligning with the themes and concerns of the festival projects, delivered by festival artists and local practitioners/experts. Subjects of focus include How to become better listeners, the future of queer spaces, mental health, rest and artistic endeavour and the taste of Leeds - creating a condiment with and for the city.

Previously announced works include Museums in People's Homes, Pick Me Up (& hold me tight) and Public House - The Yorkshire Square.

Joshua Sofaer has re-fashioned and created artefacts from 14 Leeds collectors for Museums in People's Homes. These artefacts will be housed within a portable museum complete with a tiny gift shop and cafe. Book the tour for your home and hear the stories of amazing collectors from across Leeds including the NHS paramedic who collects models of hands whose own life-saving hand Joshua has been modelled into a copper glove.

Pick Me Up (& hold me tight) is both a national project to make all the 34,000 public phone boxes in the UK ring at the same time and a regional project in Leeds as part of Compass Festival. The Leeds project will see phones across the city ring at 11am daily. The gentle, thought-provoking audio experience explores contemporary loneliness, and mental health is inspired by ZU-UK's research into occurrences of suicide. This warm work is not a suicide prevention project but an invitation to us all to think about how we listen. Pick Me Up (and hold me tight) can also be experienced online via an audio-visual map that will track - in real time - which phones have been picked up and which ones are still trying to make a connection.

The unprecedented closure of the UK's already endangered pubs during this year's lockdown has highlighted both the fragility and the importance of the public house. Modelled on the dimensions of the unique fermenting vessel made famous by Tetley's Brewery, Public House - The Yorkshire Square will be a four-sided fully operational pop-up pub in Leeds Kirkgate market. Created by Etheridge and Persighetti (Small Acts), the project investigates the enduring role of pubs as places of community, intergenerational exchange, entertainment, (hi)story-telling and activism. If the pub isn't your place to commune, what is?

Compass commission and present interactive live art projects in Leeds. They run an artist residency programme, present standalone projects and exhibitions and artist development initiatives. Compass is also the driving force behind the biennial Compass Festival.

Since 2011 Compass has been animating the city with brilliant interactive live art projects in which they invite the public to join them in playful enquiry, silent contemplation, astonishing feats of madness, hospitality and communality within and beyond the theatre or the gallery, in the places where we live, work and play.

They believe that everyone can enjoy the very best of contemporary live art and work closely with partners around the city and beyond to present thought provoking, entertaining and moving projects in a range of settings including libraries, markets, museums, shopping centres and the city streets.

They take time to work with artists and communities making sure the projects they commission are considered and fully engaged with their surroundings.

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