Leeds Active Arts Fair-trade Awareness Workshop at Leeds College of Art

As a part of RAG week at the LCA, Active Arts were asked to create a practical work shop to engage the students  and greaten their knowledge regarding poverty and inequality. It was the official RAG Poverty & Inequality day for LCA.

It was fair-trade month and their campaign was to emphasise the use of fair trade cotton. Therefore Active Arts decided to participate by creating a patchwork quilt using upcycled goods, manpower, and basic sewing machine skills, to entice passers by to, so they would then enquire about our motive and engage with the workshop.

Mmm Fair-trade chocolate was the best especially the orange flavoured.

We proceeded to stage an event at the canteen of Leeds College of art on Thursday the 17^th of March, in order to promote the use of Fair-trade products, within the everyday life of students.

Just loving the patch work, I would like to thank again all those who participated and those who donated materials, and resources. It was a big success and we got loads of sewing done.

Getting down to business, on our stall

Laura from Christian Aid brought useful resources about Fairtrade and to help sew some patches.

The final outcome - thanks everyone again who got involved and helped.

Instructional Video - Fanzine and Teambuilding Exercise.

Active Arts - Fanzine and Teambuilding Exercise from Tom Woodland on Vimeo.

Leeds ActiveARTS Fanzine making workshop

Our first Leeds ActiveARTS Fanzine was made today! Instead of our usual weekly meeting, it turned into a practical workshop where we created our first batch of fanzines!


Tom getting stuck in


Lottie sews up the zines with love and care


Shortly after this picture was taken Tom made us all a cuppa tea :D


Katie and Lana working hard


Specially screen printed logo packaging for the zines


Did you really sew up all of those zinese Lottie?


We even had Active Arts stickers


Kat is having fun guillotining (slicing)




Our finished zines





Our Fanzines will be shown and available to purchase at Leeds Artists' Book Fair on Friday 11th March and Saturday 12th March.

Super Soup Lunch Art Stunt in Leeds City Centre - 4/03/11

The art stunt we held to promote the Super Soup Lunch event was a great success! Here are a few photos from the day:


Making our way to town with the big picture. A huge thanks to the transportation gang.


Lana setting up in Leeds City Centre


The start of our little event!


Here we are finishing off the piece


Paddy is concentrating hard


Talking to people about the Super Soup event


Lottie making sure the beans are all in place


The sun came out to play!


Here's the Leeds ActiveARTS gang!

A huge THANK YOU goes out to all the people who were involved in this project! It was not possible without all of your help!

Please check out Christian Aid's upcoming national event, the Super Soup Lunch event. The idea is to eat soup for lunch and help raise awareness and funds to help millions of people who are living in poverty. For more info, please check out the Christian Aid website.

Leeds ActiveARTS handmade screenprinted T-shirts & tote bags

During an Active Arts meeting we thought it would be a great idea to screen print some t-shirts with our logo on it.So Kat got busy screenprinting t-shirts, here are a few pictures of the process:


The first completed tshirts


Screenprinting is really fun!


Pulling the paint down with a squeegee.



The first batch of our screen printed tshirts and tote bags are ready! They were hand screen printed in an array of bright colours onto plain white t-shirts and canvas tote bags.



These will be available to purchase at future Leeds ActiveARTS events and exhibitions. Keep an eye out!

Leeds ActiveARTS Super Soup Lunch Art Stunt in progress...

Our work for the huge art attack to promote the Super Soup Lunch started this week! We wanted to do a fun and creative project that we could all contribute towards and decided on an 'art attack' style picture. We are promoting the Super Soup Lunch, so we decided to use soup ingredients to create a large piece of art work!

Here are a couple of in progress pictures..



The piece is about 8ft by 6ft and is made from various beans, lentils, seeds and rice. Leeds ActiveARTS members have painstakingly glued down these ingredients to make this piece of art, it was great to see it taking shape and form..


Special Thanks to Lana who headed this project!


Nearly finished!



We will be making the finishing touches to the piece in Leeds City Centre tomorrow from 12pm. That's Friday 4th March outside Sainsburys/CEX where the statue of the man with the barrel is.

Join us to promote the Super Soup Lunch which takes place on 25th March.

Leeds Art RAG week: 7th March - 11th March 2011

Most Universities in the UK have their own RAG Society. It stands for 'Raise and Give' and it is a society of students, who organise various events to raise money for charities of their choice.

For decades, RAG Societies at universities have held huge events and fundraisers to raise money for particular charities. At Leeds College of Art, if students wanted to participate in a RAG event, they would have to join the University of Leeds RAG Society (which is a really successful RAG Society, check out their website here).

Now, students at Leeds College of Art have taken the initiative to start their very own Leeds College of Art RAG Society. We may only be a small art college, compared to the bigger universities, but we still have passionate and talented students who want to use their skills to organise RAG events and hold our very own fundraisers and activites. Students at LCAD have been working hard to organise and hold the FIRST EVER Leeds College of Art RAG week.

Please support the first ever official Leeds College of Art RAG Week:



It is a going to be a fun and lively week next week! Please get involved with the activities!

On Monday 7th March at 10AM we are having a Doodle Day! Donate 20p and contribute a doodle to our big doodle board. The theme is 'Around Your World', what will you draw?


On Tuesday 8th March, at 10AM a handful of local and national environmental organisations will be in the college cafe to explain their current campaigns and the causes they work on behalf of. Come along to chat to people and get insipred to help your world. At 2.30PM there will be a creative workshop where we will be using upcycled paper to make into origami. Come along to get involved!


On Wednesday 9th March at 10AM, The Studio Theatre at Blenheim Walk will be home to around 15 Volunteer based organisations ready to offer you opportunities to make a difference. From local to international groups, this is a chance to do something constructive over the summer or give something back to the community over weekends. Come along to find out more information!


On Thursday 10th March at 10AM there will be local and national organisations talking about Poverty & Inequality. Come along to find out what you can do to help, and for more information. At 12PM we are having a creative quilt making workshop. Come along to the college cafe where you can make your very own personalised square patch for our patchwork quilt, which will then be exhibited at Leeds College of Art. At 7PM there will be a party in WALKABOUT, tickets are £3.

On Friday 11th March there will be a whole day dedicated to fundraising. From 12PM there will be a whole range of creative workshops to get involved with. Come along to the college cafe to have a look around to see what students are getting up to.

We are also holding a raffle thoughout the week. The prizes will be original pieces of artwork done by Leeds Art College tutors and students. Raffle tickets are only £1 and can be bought from the Student Union or from ticket sellers. The draw for this raffle will take place at 10.30AM on Friday, in the college cafeteria.

All proceeds from the week will be going to charity

For more information please see the Leeds Art RAG website or join the facebook group

Super Soup Lunch Art Stunt

UPCOMING PROJECT! On 4th March, Leeds Active ARTS is holding an event to support the Super Soup Lunch!

We are going to head to Leeds City Centre and do a huge art piece - about 8ft x 6ft in size, which will be an 'art attack' style collaborative piece to promote the Super Soup Lunch event. The materials we are going to use will be... SOUP INGREDIENTS! That's right, we are going to take plentiful amounts of things like beans, vegetables, rice, pasta and lentils and create a wonderful art piece for all to enjoy.

Our huge art attack on 4th MARCH in Leeds City Centre will be a one day only project. It will be a fun and jolly day and we are wanting to get as many people involved as possible! Afterwards, it will all be turned into yummy, delicious soup! This will be in preparation for the SUPER SOUP LUNCH......

On Friday 25 March 2011 people across Britain will having soup for lunch, to raise money for the world's poorest communities. With the work of Christian Aid, we want to create hype about this, voicing the need and ability to help end poverty now.

Millions of people today are living in poverty. Let's do something about this!! We can raise money and awareness, and help to support charities like the Ukamba Christian Community Services who actively support people who are faced with poverty.

Homemade soup is absolutely delicious and there are so many recipes to try. Using fresh vegetables, soup is definitely nutritious and good for you! You can get such value for money and the benefits do not stop there. You can make it in batches and freeze it, storing it ready to be conveniently heated up for lunch whenever it takes your fancy!

Get creative, get active and get involved by joining us on 4th March in Leeds City Centre, for our big art attack-style stunt, or by making your own soup for lunch on 25th March to help raise money to fight poverty.

Happy Alternative Valentine's Day!

Today is the day! Our Valentine's Day cards and keyrings lovingly made at this workshop a few weeks ago were ready to be delivered across Leeds City Centre at dusk this morning, ready to be found by members of the unsuspecting public! Were you lucky enough to find one?









We wanted to create these Valentine's Day cards to distribute in order to raise awareness regarding Women and Women's Rights. Did you know that there are over 100 million missing women across the world?

We at Leeds Active ARTS wish you a Happy Valentine's Day and urge you to think about topics outside your daily life and more on a global scale, such as Gender Inequality. For more information regarding this subject please click here.

Lots of love from all at Leeds Active ARTS.
xxx

Alternative Valentine's day Cards Workshop 31/01/11 at Remade in Leeds

This week Leeds ActiveARTS held its first ever workshop!! It was held at a cool little vintage shop in Hyde Park, Leeds called Remade. We are very pleased to report that it was a huge success!



ActiveARTS group members and friends gathered around to chat, eat cookies and create shrink wrap key rings for our 'Alternative Valentine's Day' cards. Everybody created a love heart with a personalised message reminding you to spread the love.



The love heart keyrings we made will be placed inside alternative Valentine's Day cards to be left out for the public, all over Leeds this Valentine's Day. Why? Well we want to do something different this Valentine's Day. Instead of the usual stigma associated with Valentine's Day, we want to show and spread neighbourly and global love!



We made these cards and keyrings in order to spread awareness about topics which are usually forgotten about in the midst of this commercialised holiday. Gender Inequality, Women's Rights and Climate Change are all subjects we wish to address.

The Craftivist Collective have been hijacking Valentine's Day this way for the past 3 years. Their manifesto is as follows:

"To expose the scandal of global poverty, and human rights injustices though the power of craft and public art. This will be done through provocative, non-violent creative actions.”

This statement sums up the intentions behind this action, and the best part is, it's fun to get involved with. Already there have been Crafty Collectives springing up across the world, from Bangor to Vancouver, all coming together to work collaboratively on this project.

We teamed up with Remade Leeds, Platform 2 and Christian Aid to make this workshop possible. Many thanks to all you Active Artists for getting involved! A video of the workshop is to come, so please watch this space!