Witnessing the Event / Capturing the Particular

Compass Festival of Live Art The Compass Festival of Live Art 25 - 27 November 2011 was a weekend of live art events across the city of Leeds, which aimed to engage as many people as possible and bring new people into contact with live art. The Festival was produced and curated by Annie Lloyd, and examined art in the public realm and socially engaged practice. The Festival was mostly located in public places where the work unfolded over a considerable period of time so people didn’t have to commit to being anywhere on the dot, nor did they need to book in advance. Often people came across the work as they went about their usual business and most of it was free. Anyone who wanted, including Symposium attenders, could see everything in a day and durational practice predominated. The programme included Reckless Sleepers, Forced Entertainment, Oliver Bray with Mark Flischer, Jenny Lawson, Simon Persighetti and Katie Etheridge, Brian Lobel, Janek Schaefer, Grace Surman and Catherine Butterworth and Third Angel.

The Symposium and Festival were the culmination of the 18 month first phase of a project to strengthen the live art sector in Yorkshire and The Humber. The aims are to further develop and sustain the ambitions, diversity and vitality of the art form through infrastructure development between practitioners, programmers and Education Institutions by undertaking a unique series of programming initiatives and a professional development programme.