With 2023 fast approaching, we’re expanding our team and one of our newest members is Jenny Scannell who has joined us from Leeds Arts University where she worked with underrepresented groups to get them into higher education. She’s joined us as the new Cultural Education Partnerships Manager and will be looking at our work with children and young people whilst also managing the Leeds CEP (Cultural Education Partnership).   “I’m so excited to be here following the rise of LEEDS 2023! My role is part of the Creative Learning and Engagement team and I’ll be managing different parts of ..read more

Dave Cartwright, Co-creation Producer for LEEDS 2023, is part of the team recruiting ‘Neighbourhood Hosts’ for the transformational year for the city and applications are now live. These hosts will work with LEEDS 2023 to help champion the Year of Culture across the city, they will support residents in their neighbourhood to get involved and work with the rest of the 2023 team to make an amazing celebration event happen in their community in August 2023.  There are 33 wards across Leeds and next year we want to make sure that as many of the people who live in each and every one are involv ..read more

With momentum building as Leeds gets ready to Let Culture Loose across the city next year, LEEDS 2023 has announced Landsec as a headline partner for its landmark year of culture. Landsec is one of the leading real estate companies in the UK whose portfolio includes local landmarks Trinity Leeds and the White Rose Shopping Centre.  The partnership includes a significant financial investment and in-kind support which will see LEEDS 2023 create a pop-up temporary hub in a unit at Trinity Leeds shopping centre throughout 2023. The hub will be open to the public and accessible for a ..read more

Introducing the Tech for the Public Good mini-series! Delving into some of the biggest issues we face in the world today. Over the next month we’re releasing conversations with local artists, big thinkers & those wanting to creating change.  For our first episode, we sat down with the team from Foxglove, a creative partnership between Jane Earnshaw and Abby Dix-Mason. Over the last 5 years they have been exploring the life and work of John Smeaton, a Leeds local and the UK’s first Civil Engineer! Find out more about their work and John Smeaton by reading on and having a listen to our ..read more

LEEDS 2023 has been awarded just over £2.1million from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to develop creative projects unearthing and showcasing the history and hidden stories of Leeds’s communities and its people.    LEEDS 2023 is one of seven new projects nationally to share £13.7million awarded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, aimed at supporting nature, communities and cultural recovery post- pandemic.  The grant has been awarded to Leeds Culture Trust, the charitable organisation delivering LEEDS 2023, which made the successful bid to support a range of creative projects c ..read more

This July, we are excited to host our Youth Summit event for young people aged 14-25 to express their attitudes and opinions towards culture and for youth organisations to listen and respond to these needs.  On July 15th, the Youth Summit will take place at Leeds Playhouse and will be a space for young people to explore what culture means to them. We’ve invited a variety of young voices from across the city to join us, including schoolchildren, those working with youth organisations and community groups, and young people attending independently. We’ve also invited representatives and ..read more

We are so delighted that our friends and colleagues in Bradford have won the designation to be UK City of Culture 2025 after a hotly contested competition between fellow finalists County Durham, Southampton and Wrexham County Borough. Huge congratulations to everyone. We know how much hard work goes into making such a bid and the leap of faith it takes to dream big and imagine the impossible. The bid team led by Shanaz Gulzar and Richard Shaw, along with the leadership team at Bradford City Council, have brilliantly bought together so many people from across the city in one unifying movement t ..read more

We are deeply saddened and moved to hear of the sudden passing of Leeds legend and LEEDS 2023 patron Kay Mellor. Kully Thiarai, Creative Director and Chief Executive of LEEDS 2023 has issued the following statement. “This is such sad news. Kay was an unrivalled champion of Leeds and she leaves an incredible cultural legacy. She took inspiration from the everyday and had that rare talent of creating universal stories that resonated with so many people, making us laugh and cry in equal measure. Her support for LEEDS 2023 was absolute, as she understood the importance of culture in all our lives ..read more

Lee Brennan, our Head of Creative Learning and Engagement, tells us more about the Roadshow events heading out across Leeds this summer... Everyone is invited! We want absolutely everyone in Leeds to be part of LEEDS 2023 – across every area, in every street, in every home in the city. With just over six months to go until 2023, the LEEDS 2023 team is heading out on a series of roadshows to give the people of Leeds a taste of what they can expect from their Year of Culture. We’re running a roadshow in each of the 33 wards in Leeds over the next few months. The first one is taking place on May ..read more

Our Volunteering Manager, Lee Ashworth talks about the power of volunteering and how you can get involved… The power of volunteering cannot be underestimated. It brings people and communities together to do extraordinary things and allows people to live their very best lives. You get to know some amazing people that you wouldn’t otherwise have met, you learn loads of new skills, and you can discover so much about your community – and yourself. I’ve worked as a Volunteering Manager in many different organisations over the years and I’ve seen just how transformative volunteering can be for peopl ..read more