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Situation Leeds supports visual arts across the city, creating opportunities for artists to connect, share work, and collaborate. 

The monthly Situation Leeds Network provides a space for discussion, skill-sharing, and feedback, welcoming all stages of practice and any medium. 

Alongside this, Situation Leeds Festival develops public-facing projects and events, building on a 20-year legacy of artist-led activity in the city. 

Together, the network and festival help strengthen the city’s creative community, increase the visibility of visual arts, and provide platforms for experimentation, collaboration, and engagement.

Situation Leeds is supported by Hyde Park Book Club and Yorkshire & Humber Visual Arts Network (YVAN).

Situation Leeds Festival

Situation Leeds: Festival is part of a broader programme supporting visual arts in Leeds. The original festival, launched in 2005, featured over 50 publicly sited projects by 164 artists and received national and local recognition. Building on this history, the festival will develop public-facing projects and events that connect artists with audiences, explore the city’s spaces, and encourage creative experimentation.

Alongside the festival, the Situation Leeds Network provides a monthly space for artists to share work, exchange ideas, and build connections. Together, the network and festival offer complementary platforms to strengthen the city’s visual arts sector. We are actively seeking partners, collaborators, and supporters to help realise future projects and ensure the festival is inclusive, ambitious, and reflective of Leeds’ vibrant arts community.

Festival 2026

Situation Leeds returns in May 2026, bringing a grassroots, artist-led festival back to the city for the first time in almost two decades. With a core programme from 11–24 May, with activity continuing across May and June, the festival will showcase new work, temporary interventions and events shaped by over 40 artists working in and around Leeds today.

Want to explore in more detail? Open the full listings:

Explore the festival! 

Situation Leeds: 2005

Situation Leeds: Contemporary Artists and the Public Realm 2005, the festival ran from May 16-29 May. It heralded the festival by extending definitions of public art and by offering public access to cultural activity, temporary interventions, exhibitions, seminars and critical print. Key to this was that it was artist-led: initiated and set up by Leeds artists and art organisations to provide a platform for independent artistic projects in public space. Organising the festival was a number of arts organisations in the city: Artist House, East Street Arts, Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds Met Gallery, Leeds Visual Arts Forum, and Media and Arts Partnership.

Happenings took place at a wide variety of venues across the city and included filling Hyde Park with red sofas (Claire Bundell Jones and Julie Fiala with Burley and Hyde Park Community Safety Project), a video sequence of Leeds' 29 postal areas (LS-TV) by Terry Wragg and Jo Dunn, a half-scale model of the Electric Press Tower, a Leeds landmark made from 8,000 individually folded cardboard bricks and Massive Tiny Art Shanty by Andy Abbott abnd Dave Ronalds, corsets around trees (Angela Jutta Knowles: Babes in the Wood) and a DIY art critics sticker kit from The Gavinturks. 

Situation Leeds 2005 was funded by Arts Council England/National Lottery, Leeds Metropolitan University and Leeds City Council

Situation Leeds: 2007

Situation Leeds: Contemporary Artists and the Public Realm 2007 built on the ambition and scope of the original festival, expanding its reach across more than 60 sites and presenting 75 artist-led projects throughout the city. As in 2005, the festival championed independent practice and encouraged artists to test ideas in public, using Leeds as a site for creative exchange, play and critical reflection.

The 2007 programme introduced new ways for audiences to encounter work. Five commissions were screened on the Millennium Square Screen, bringing moving image into the daily flow of the city. Printed materials, including an artists’ map, fanzines and postcards, were distributed for free, offering entry points into the programme and encouraging people to explore at their own pace. Walking tours provided another route through the festival, connecting audiences with artists, spaces and the stories behind the projects.



Situation Leeds 2007 was funded by Leeds City Council, Arts Council England and Leeds Metropolitan University.