LEEDS 2023 Directors Interview

Will Baldwin-Pask Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the state of the art podcast. This is the first one we've done for a while, but it is a special one. In this episode, we're turning our attention to Leeds which has just been through its year of culture. The organisation behind the Year of Culture is LEEDS 2023. And I was lucky enough to sit down with Kully Thiarai, CEO and creative director of LEEDS 2023 and Emma Beverley, Director of Programming. A bit of context first, back in 2017, Leeds' bid to be the European Capital of Culture was rejected, along with all UK cities after we left the EU, the bid organisers, the council and many others in the city decided they delivered their own 12 month Festival of Arts and Culture in 2023. Only without the budget or the frameworks that come with being a European capital or UK city of culture, planned during a pandemic and carried out in a time of huge economic uncertainty. The Year of Culture provided a mixture of self produced events, community engagement projects, and partnerships with creatives from Leeds and around the world.

Now, I actually worked in the LEEDS 2023 team for part of the delivery year, and I got to see the challenges and the successes of the projects up close. But not everyone will know what went on behind the scenes in 2023. So in this episode, we'll find out from Kully and Emma, what challenges they faced, why they made the decisions they made, and what a year of culture might mean for the city. Especially thank you to Eiger studios for hosting us. And I hope you enjoy listening back to this episode of steady arts podcast.

So I'm delighted to have with me today, Kully and Emma, who were the directors of LEEDS 2023, the Year of Culture. The first question I really want to ask is probably the most important, which is, how are you?

Kully Thiarai Well, I always say I'm still standing, and I'm still smiling, and we still got lots to do. So I'm fine. About you, Emma.

Emma Beverley I relieved, a bit tired. And just excited really about what comes next. It's quite strange having your kind of sole focus on something for so long, and then for it to be done. So I don't know, maybe ask me in like six months?

Kully Thiarai Well, you've had a longer journey with it than me, haven't you? Because you were part of the original bid programme. So Emma Beverley yeah, like lots of different people in the city when the city said back in 2014 2015. Should we bid?

There are a number of us who that was the kind of first moment that we started to get get involved in it. So yeah, it's been quite the ride.

Will Baldwin-Pask Well that'd be good to hear from both of you, actually. What was your entrance point into the Year of culture? So you obviously would have had connections with Leeds? And then how does that transition into overseeing a project of this size?

Kully Thiarai Well, I started, I mean, for me, coming to deliver a Year of Culture for Leeds was like coming home, right back to the beginning because Leeds was the first place. I got involved in the arts when I was asked by Red Ladder theatre company to come along and work with them to find ways to engage with young people because they were re reimagining the company. And then eventually, I ended up doing quite a lot work for them. And some people will know I became artistic director of Red Ladder in the mid 90s. So the city has always been a really important part of my life. I've lived here so even though I wasn't involved in the the bid process, I was aware of it because I was here I'll it's always been a thrill to see what might come from a city that was trying to be bigger and bolder about its cultural life because it's there. It's just that we weren't shouting about it very often. And so I'd moved to run National Theatre Wales in in 2016, and I guess it felt like when the job came up, too important not to throw my hat in the ring and that's, that's what I did. And I was lucky enough to get it so that was my journey with it.

Will Baldwin-Pask What about you?

Emma Beverley Well, I'd been living I moved to Leeds after university so in 2012 Because I'd gone to uni in Sheffield, but a lot of the things I like to go and see and do were in Leeds and a lot of my artistic community were here as well. So yeah, I'd been here for that amount of time. But a lot of the work that I did didn't actually take place in Leeds. So I was kind of, based here, I had a studio at East Street Arts.

And the bidding process for that was the first time that I could really route myself in the city. Most of my work was national or international with independent artists. So so my journey with LEEDS 2023 specifically was they did they did the town hall event where they spoke about should we bid to European Capital of Culture. I'd never heard of it before. But it sounded great. So I was like, Yes. And then when they started to recruit a team, a programming team for the bid book, which is the basically the funding application that you make to the EU for the title, and I was approached by another colleague of mine called Matt Berman, he'd just run Yorkshire festival, to ask if I wanted to go in for it as a job share with him. And another amazing person who I hadn't worked with before, called Jenny Harris, who, like I've continued to collaborate with since then. And we got we got the freelance post. So we had a couple of years where we were kind of dreaming up and imagining this, this programme for what would be 365 days of culture, we had to try and imagine about half of it for the for the bid book. So that was a, that was a really amazing moment. For me, I was about 24, 25.

So it felt a little bit wild to be working on something like that, at that age, but working alongside really experienced people like Matt and Jenny, and then also get into understand how culture works at a city level. And all of this was really spearheaded by Cluny Macpherson, who was the Director of Culture for Leeds. And I learned so much from him. I'd never heard of things like cultural strategies, I didn't know about policy, and how important all of that was. And it was through that process, really, that when I came into the job that I'm doing now that I actually really understood that the Year of Culture, and these kind of big, temporary events that different cities do. They're only really one moment in like a 10 year strategy, 15 year 20 year strategy. And so that felt like a massive learning curve for me in terms of then what we actually did during the years to try and think of it within that frame. But I wasn't necessarily intending to work as part of the delivery body, and then Kully got the job. And I'd wanted to work with Kully. I've tried before, so I thought, right, I'll try again, which I love

winding her up about. And yeah, and I got I got the role with which at the time was executive producer. So I started three years ago, Will Baldwin-Pask amazing. So long journeys for you guys, but also like long journeys, experiencing other cultural organisations and what it takes to put on events of different size. But I don't know if people realise just what it takes to put on a full year of culture, especially given some of the contexts of around 2023 What was happening in the world? Could you give us a sense of like, what actually is required resource wise, in terms of how many moving parts there are?

Kully Thiarai Well, I think that LEEDS 2023 is probably quite a unique case study. Because, you know, for a start the original bid, and the ambition was for a 60 million pound programme, that was, you know, part of the European capital culture, which comes with all of the framework and the history of European capitals of culture. And of course, people will be familiar that Glasgow was many years ago. And Liverpool in 2008 was the last UK city that was Capital of Culture, European Capital of Culture. So the impact of those things is enormous. So in many respects, the fact that as a consequence of Brexit, we no longer were eligible to compete in that competition, was a considerable knock back, you know, it was a really major, impactful moment for so many people who had worked so hard to get a really very brilliant bid together and so close to interview day was it with when the announcement came? So I always said at the very beginning that it was a big transformational decision for the city when it decided that you know, collectively across party and across business and culture, that having made the commitment to invest in culture in this way that the city would continue to find a way to deliver it. And so that the ambition for the programme was reduced by half, I think it was about a £30 million programme. And then the independent trust was set up, chair and Board of Trustees and they began the recruitment process for the team and and that all was sorted 2018, 2019. And I was appointed in 2019, but didn't take post my post up till the beginning of January 2020. 10 weeks before lockdown. And there was myself and an an assistant who had been working with the council and the bid book through the process who and I bought Board of Trustees so and our commitment from the Council of some investment of at that at that time, it was about 12 million. But, you know, an ambition to make a project that was 30 to 34 million. So, you know, a requirement to raise at least another 12 million. Yeah.

That moment of COVID, the ability to talk to colleagues to think about what the future might be when the sector was in absolute crisis. No, even big organisations like opera north, we're going, I can't talk to you about 2023, because I don't, I don't know what next month looks like next week looks like or if were gonna make it to the end of the year, because it was such a, it has such a profound impact.

And I know there's lots of sectors, but the art sector really did really visibly suffer in all sorts of ways.

So it's really, it would have been a moment that it would have been very easy for everybody to just go look, this is too hard. Let's Let's not do this. So it was it was very, very challenging. Because we couldn't recruit, we didn't know what to do, really, in many ways we couldn't recruit the full team. Well it was hard to have conversations about, you know, aspects of programme and partnerships. And so just holding the space for that first year was, in part, trying to work out what do we, what could we do? How do you build an organisation from scratch in those circumstances? And how do you try and raise money? And so I think we had, we had at the end of at the end of the first year, we had five people in post, which, you know, given that it's such a big programme to deliver, it was a very, very

small team. And there was a lot to do. And there was still also lots of stress in the system around whether we could raise the funds that might be required, including, you know, the council having to seriously think about their commitment to culture in that way.

Will Baldwin-Pask Yeah. Was there any point that it became, you know, there was like existential questions around it, you know, when you're looking at the resource and the uncertainty, was there any point where people were having conversations about whether to even go ahead?

Kully Thiarai at the end of that first year, when the, into the end of 2020, when the council was having to relook at its budget allocation for the following year? Yes, absolutely. And, in fact, they there was consultation wasn't there with the public around the investment into Leeds 2023, at that year, in that year, and actually, the response was such that, you know, the city continued, and we, like many of the other arts organisation in the, in the sector in the city got a 15% cut, you know, which was significant cut, but nevertheless, that that could have been a moment when do you could have easily not have happened at all. So yeah, it's been like that all the way through that level of uncertainty because, you know, trying to plan a programme of delivery and start putting things into development when you don't know how much money you've got. It's really, really challenging. And working in that way constantly is very, very hard for artists, for creatives, for producers, for the business, you know, Will Baldwin-Pask also from a programming perspective. Do you have to have like a rethink about the kind of stuff that's going to happen in a year of culture when there's so much uncertainty about what you're going to have available?

Emma Beverley so by the time that I started, we were setting budgets and like Kully was explaining, we basically had to do it where we had to This is what the top standard might look like, which is the roughly 32 million pounds budget for the whole organisation. This is what a middle level looks like, which was about 24 25 million. And then this is what it looks like with only the council the investment and the money that we've managed to raise so far, which wasn't a huge amount, I think that was at about 15. Mil. These are like, these are, these are wildly different scenarios. You know, and they bet, it's, it's not possible to just kind of shave off a little bit from each area, you, thankfully did a completely different things.

And so, you know, now that we're in the period where we've delivered it, you know, one of the things I keep thinking about is there are so many different versions of what Leeds 23 could have been, would have been.

Kully Thiarai But also, I guess there was, there was a level of pressure to say publicly, what we were going to do very early on. And in that context, it's very hard to kind of go with this, because everybody's, you know, of course, understandably, everybody wants to know what we're going to do what you're going to see what you're gonna make, you know, and and in within the wider context, that's really challenging, because you need, it wasn't like, Oh, here's the bid book, and we're gonna just do everything that was in the bid book. You know, there were projects that were being funded

throughout, you know, had a lifespan. But there was also a question when COVID and cost of living, which was what is needed now, that we had to think about through the lens of the programme.

Emma Beverley So one of the things that is helpful about that situation, and the fact that you've got these three very different versions. And that actually, some of this is within your control. And some of this is not within your control, you've just got to try your very best. And also because Kelly and I haven't had an existing relationship with the city, because of all the crises, of which it was enormous. We could have very frank conversations with the cultural sector. And there was a period of time, which I think was attempting to, whilst being extremely sensitive to the circumstances that the sector was in, was attempting to try and reconfigure the relationship that the sector had with leads 2023. And I think we did that to varying degrees of success, because up until this point, the question that's been posed to the city is, do you want to win something? Largely people like to win things? So of course, the answer is yes. You know, do you want to be win this title to be European Capital of Culture? Yes. Lots of people get behind that. Lots of people can really see what they can contribute to that. Now, what we're asking them in this period of time is, well, we're not a European Capital of Culture. But we're going to do something anyway. And we can't exactly tell you what that's going to look like right now, because of x, y, and Zed. But we do know that we have these kind of underlying themes. And what we do think we should be doing is focusing really explicitly on what doesn't happen here already. So the question that we were asking people was, what can we do? Using leads 2023 as a catalyst that we haven't been able to do before? And in all of that complexity of the context, and the scenario planning, and the kind of the really real craziness that we were in just asking that one question really helped to solidify, I think for some of the people that we were working with, what their contribution to the year could be. So the task at hand from a programming perspective wasn't okay, we need to know exactly what all of these projects are. Now what because that would have been crazy to do in that context, what we needed to do was try and create some kind of structure and try and answer that question. So we knew that there was already incredible things happening in Leeds.

It's a really, really rich city, when it comes to its cultural infrastructure. There's a lot of good stuff happening here. It's not broken, don't fix it, how do we just communicate it shout about it more. And that then led to was going well, one strand of the year should be about promoting and changing perceptions of the city of Leeds. And actually, that's a that's a that's about communications. That's about branding, it's about PR. And then we also knew that, because Leeds has so much going on in terms of its sector, that there'd be a lot that we could support, but that could be led by the city and the existing partners. There were lots of things that people wanted to try out that they hadn't really had the either the confidence to do yet, or the reason actually and that's another great thing about these temporary events is they give they give a purpose. They give a reason to try to do something new or different. That isn't business as usual. And so a lot of the projects that have been developed through the bid book process, we're we're really kind of recognising that there is various exceptional people here, and they've got stuff they want to do. So we tried to support that, and that that kind of gave birth to the partnership strand of the year. And then we also knew that there were things that we could do as a temporary intervention in the city, that for whatever reason, whether that's due to the context of the pandemic, whether that's due to the challenges around resourcing, or whether it's to do with the fact that there hadn't really been a framework to develop a certain type of art form in the city as strongly just yet, we knew that there were these things that we could do that were really, really, really high risk, some of them might not work. And for a lot of people in the art sector, especially the subsidised arts sector, doing things that are high risk, at this particular moment,

pandemic or not, feels like a challenge from a programming point of view. So that's when we started to go. Okay, so what are these kind of signature moments across the year? And how do they really demonstrate that certain things are possible, but also that it's not always about things consistently working, you know, and it's not always about doing something where you know, that it's going to be successful, you're doing something because it's trying to answer a question in society, or it's trying to demonstrate the kind of the breadth of the contribution that the art sector in particular can make across a whole range of different areas that we're dealing with on a day to day basis, whether that's by, you know, addressing the gender inequalities that exist within the construction sector by building a barn in 24 hours for 300 women or non binary people, or by trying to look at, you know, the future of a city like Leeds in the context of the climate crisis, and its land ownership and its land occupation, by inviting artists from all around the world to question, you know, what is a forest? And what kind of sites to the city, what kind of science does the city already have, that we could make more use of, if we looked at them in a different way, you know, and that's what this is a forest invisible flux project was really trying to investigate to you these, these aren't necessarily projects that have an immediate self, you know, they're the ones that you have to really find the right people who were really up for it, to get behind. And, and that's what the kind of produced strand of the programme was, that's a really long convoluted way of me saying it was incredibly chaotic in a lot of respects. So in that instance, the only thing you can do is try and find kind of a through line, that means you can, you can accept the chaos and be within that, and then try and find a framework for people to see themselves within.

And, and that's really what we had to focus on in that first six months of 2021.

Kully Thiarai Also, I think the whole and managing uncertainties is one of the biggest challenges of projects like this, because you have to have a level of you almost have to have a level of bravado that says we have the confidence to deliver this, even when things are changing on a weekly, daily, sometimes hourly basis, you know, on any given project, so there is a sort of sense in which you have to, certainly, as a co creative director, you have to carry the can for and carry the belief, even if it's going even if it's heading into huge, you know, droppers left, right and centre, or that you're navigating very complex political systems, or that you're trying to, you know, any, anyone listening to this, who's an artist will know that sometimes trying to explain what it is you're making, is really impossible, you know, because people want to understand it. And so, and some of the things we were doing, people had experienced them to kind of get it to get it really, and in a way it was what was, what was extraordinary was even our own teams, and you'll, you know, sometimes would experience the final outcome of a project and go, Oh, I didn't realise that was what it would make me feel like or think about or, that was amazing. That was amazing, right? And so, part of the job of the artist is to try and do that, right, it's to kind of provoke and, and, and question and give you an experience that is beyond what you thought it would be. And I think that comes with huge levels of risk. Of course it does for the artists and for the organisation. But that's also what was necessary when Emma talks about, you know, what is it that we can do, that might not be otherwise possible part of that was managed bring that level of risk, you know, part of that was bringing in the right people to be able to have a year where you can cash on you borrow has an amazing new permanent sculpture in the city delivered, you know, because that's been a conversation for a number of years, you know, it could have carried on being a conversation for a number of years. But a focal point allowed us to take some of that on and drive it forward. And there's a whole load of stuff that actually is driven by a value system that you necessarily wouldn't talk about, right, I wouldn't necessarily talk about why some of those things are important for the city, but it's, it's linked to my understanding of the city, my

understanding of, of, of the bigger strategic ambitions, that we should have around inclusivity, around sustainability, around ambition and around confidence for a city. It's also my understanding that, you know, having been part of, you know, Manchester International Festival, or working internationally in different ways, the fact that there's so much going on in Leeds, and yet we just don't step out of our little world and shout about it or experience with the, the, the world beyond even though the world sits in our city, so vibrantly, you know, and so part of our job was to shout about that, to shout about the different communities to get to to shine a light on different art forms and conversations, and, and to encourage people to engage with culture in ways that really mattered to them. Yeah. And that's why some of those projects like the my leads, 2023 was like we get the privilege of working out ideas are what we want. But what if we trained a group of people that were able to connect with their community and have the confidence to deliver a festival, either something brand new, or enhance and build upon what they already did in their communities? What might that feel like, kind of look like, you know? So some of that impact, and some of that process driven work is, is not the thing that's going to hit the headlines, but it is the thing that's going to change the future of the city, and it's in terms of its cultural life?

Will Baldwin-Pask Yeah, I think it's, it's interesting when you guys describe it, because it's clearly this stuff is so intrinsically linked to who you are as individuals and the stuff that you've done previously, and how you view the city, how you view culture, there's obviously a lot of responsibility must come with that.

But that must be exhausting. Like, there must be a real toll, like having to think about this thing constantly, and being so personally attached to delivering something like this. Do you think people really appreciate that?

Kully Thiarai I don't think people fully understand what it takes to deliver a year culture. And why should they?

Actually, I think there is, there is a sense that sometimes, like I mentioned earlier, the sense of the win, well, we never had a win, because we didn't win anything. So actually, it was really hard to have that momentum, you know, because we were we was trying to build that momentum from scratch in a way even though the bid book had done a lot of that work internally in terms of the city. But I mean, you could ask any artist and go, Why do you make the work you make? You know? And How challenging is it because every piece of art means you're stepping into a place of vulnerability as an artist, you don't quite know whether it's going to work or not. And, but there is a there is, there is something important for you, that you want to say in that work, and, and you hope and that the way you managed to do that will have power and resonance and an impact. And I guess the thing about years of culture and a sort of sense that the scale and ambition of something like this. And money, the associated money, or perceived association of money means that lots of people have huge expectations that it will do everything for everybody in the city and we're we're twice the size, nearly three times the size of Hall and we had half the budget. You know, so sometimes it's very hard to explain, explained the minutiae of that, you know, in flight, you know, we were talking to our colleagues in Edinburgh, you know, the International Festival one summer and they were talking about how, you know, inflationary costs on that on one of their sets was 400%. Like, how do you manage budgets when inflation was, was absolutely, you know, increasing? You know, not just tenfold I mean, not just a few percentage points,

Kully Thiarai Actually, I think there is. There is a sense that sometimes, like Emma mentioned earlier the sense of the win? Well, we never had a win because we didn't win anything. So actually, it was really hard to have that momentum. You know, because we were we was trying to build that momentum from scratch in a way even though the bid book had done a lot of that work internally in terms of the city.

But I mean, you could ask any artists and go Why do you make the work you make? They will do everything for everybody in the city. And we're, we're twice the size, nearly three times the size of Holland, we had half the budget. You know, so sometimes it's very hard to explain the minutiae of that, you know, in flight, you know, we were talking to our colleagues in Edinburgh, you know, the International Festival one summer, and they were talking about how, you know, inflationary costs on that on one of their sets was 400%. Like, how do you manage budgets when inflation was, was absolutely, you know, increasing? You know, not just tenfold. I mean, not just a few potential points, but massively and stuff has an impact on audiences as well, and Will Baldwin-Pask how they're perceiving how money is spent and where money is available to them. Right? Yeah, absolutely. And also, which is the other reason why for us, Kully Thiarai we've tried to make as much of the work as, as free or as as low cost as possible. But that also has a another counterbalance to that is there, there is huge expectation from our stakeholders or from our boards or wherever that you'll earn a lot of money from ticket sales. So you can't have both, you can't try and create as much work accessibly and as free as possible and deal with customers and have a huge earned income target, right. So that's a constant tension you're playing with. Brexit had a massive impact on the cost of materials, it had a massive impact on on some of the international relationships and, and costs but also the ease with which artists could connect and engage and we were absolutely committed to remaining internationalist and European. You know, so all of that stuff is in the mix, when you're trying to trying to run an organisation like this. And that's very, that that never comes to the surface, with how people perceive what the year is. And also, I guess, the other final thing I would say is, we were a startup that also has it lives for a very short period of time, and then needs to close well, that's emotionally exhausting for people and different, and it takes a different, not everyone is comfortable in that world, right. You know, some some staff members who'd come from very established institutions, found it really challenging, because there was no certainty in, you know, even systems were being constantly developed, you know, and when people asked me what it was, like, I would say, it's like flying. Like, it's like flying a plane while you're trying to build it, you know, roughly where you're heading, but you have no idea whether the bits that you've put in place and are in the right order for the turbulence you're going to hit. You know, that was the only way I could describe what it felt like to kind of have a startup with a dead end date that was fixed. We couldn't say, Oh, well, actually, you know what, we're not quite ready. Can we move it to 24? There was, and you know, and I absolutely.

Will Baldwin-Pask yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Kully Thiarai

And, you know, I guess I guess one of the skills of being a theatre director is we always you got deadline, you meet it, don't you? you? What about you? And what was the Will Baldwin-Pask it's what had been so attached to the programme and being so invested in it? How does that take a toll over the course of a year? How do you feel that now that's over as well, I think the thing that has been Emma Beverley a bit of a reckoning for me during this is I've realised that I can't expect everyone to get as excited about the prospects of what Kully’s just described as what I do. And in a strange way, I think having 10 years as a freelancer and having to be really adaptable, super responsive. Make things as you go along. Or that chaotic energy that we were talking about earlier, I think really exists within that way of making a living. So the only other experience that had in an organisation was was a period of time with the st arts as a director, which is also an artist led organisation that, you know, it's really grounded in a very DIY ethos. So the environment in terms of trying to do this enormous thing with these massive targets, like the other thing I just say is it's a third of the budget of what we were anticipating, but it's still European Capital of Culture level targets. So all of that challenge, for me has been completely exhilarating and very much like the whole way through will can we we actually do it, you know, trying to work that out as we went along, rather than assuming that we'll be able to do it felt gave me a huge amount of energy actually. But it's not possible for a company of the scale that you end up being for everyone to run off that level of energy, and I've had to really learn about. And the thing that has been a consistent sort of struggle, I guess, is a personal dilemma about where even where there are people that are running off that level of energy, and enthusiasm because they love leads. A lot of people in our team wanted to be part of this because they love this city. How far can you take that in terms of what their own personal investment is into their work? And the amount of energy that they'll put forward into it? It's a it's a question that I still don't have the answer to really, is we definitely needed it. We needed people who, who have a huge amount of energy and enthusiasm for the city in the organisation. And that meant that they worked so incredibly hard. And everyone did, everyone worked so incredibly hard. And actually, because it's because it's temporary, you kind of tell yourself that well, at least I know, I don't have to do this, again. If it was like this all the time, that'd be completely unsustainable. But I hope that for I know for myself, and I hope that for other people who've worked as part of the organisation, that the turbo charge in terms of experience, and learning and everything that you kind of get out of it is so radically different to any other kind of experience working but I'm just very grateful that I've had the chance to, to experience it and do it to be honest. And I think back to being the 2424 year old working on the bed book, I never would have imagined that by this point. I'd be in a position where I'd done a job like this.

Kully Thiarai I guess there's a level of personal resilience. So it's taken, you know, there's no, I think anyone's more sane than me, probably would have cut the programme quite significantly, and would have done much less and been more cautious. And and it would have had a different impact to what I think that we've managed to achieve. But But I I mean, I'm also one of those working class kids who was told I couldn't do anything. So somebody tells me I can't do anything. I'm gonna you know, I'm going to work hard, try and do. I've said, I'm going to try and do something, I will definitely try and do it. But yeah, but hanging on to the emotional toil of potential failure, the emotional toil of caring

everyone's anxieties and appearing to be cool about it, and it will be fine. It's, it's not for the faint hearted. Actually, these sorts of jobs are not for the faint hearted. Yeah, my, my observation Will Baldwin-Pask as someone who worked in the team would be that, yes, you as I've illustrated, I've, we've got a lot of really hardworking, dedicated people. But your stress levels were crazy. And you know, it can be hard to see colleagues going through that stuff. And I'm sure it's really hard for you guys as well watching politics either moving on, or just under intense pressure. And do you have actually spoken to a lot of them, but like, and there'll be a lot of them listen to this hopefully and do you have a message for them now that it's not it's all wrapped up?

Kully Thiarai Oh, well, I've appreciated it, every member of staff that have put their energies to making this year happen. And you know, like, we often sort of say, these things don't happen in isolation, they happen because a lot of people buy into the vision and the ambition and work hard to make it happen. But you also have to accept that you know, people, loads of people moved on for all sorts of reasons.

You know, people got other jobs that were big step ups for them, and they grabbed across those opportunities. Others felt like the level of uncertainty and the level of stress that that uncertainty causes wasn't for them, and they wanted stability, and that's absolutely right and proper. Some people come in to these jobs because it's got a status around the title and, you know, isn't it all going to be marvellous, but actually don't fully understand what it takes to deliver it and now it became became something that didn't didn't suit them. They didn't suit the temperament didn't suit their If the way they wanted to work, you know, and so I think all of that is just the nature of any startup business. And but it's also amplified and made harder because of the nature of the intensity of these projects spoke to someone who, who I mean the other day who's run, you know, who led Paul and as one lots of other things, and he sort of said, in a way, these years of culture, like get a bit of post traumatic stress about because they do take, they do take, they do have an impact on you, because also, the external expectations are such that people want people think it's they think you'll there's lots of people, there's lots of money, and it's, you know, you get all the fun bits. And what they don't understand is there's never enough money, there's never enough people and the challenges of delivering any of these things are very, very complicated. Whether you know, even even small projects can have complexity around making those things work, you know, for all sorts of reasons.

So it's not just that the big projects are complex, everything is complicated. And requires time, it requires sort of understanding and empathy and, and support. And those were in short supply for us, because we lost a year because of COVID. And then we will constantly chasing funds in order to deliver what was remained a very ambitious programme. So in answer to your question about what would I like to say to colleagues, I hope that when they look back on it, that they've, they learned stuff, and they can look back and find some joy in the process. And what they made happen, and mustn't have been too traumatic for a number of people who come into Bradford so you know, Emma Beverley and it mustn't have been too traumatic for a number of people who come into Bradford so you know, you know, I think that's amazing.

Will Baldwin-Pask They're just masochists.

Emma Beverley obviously, when we're now now that the years ended, we're doing a lot of work around evaluation and wrap up and it's, it's making us having to think right back to the beginning. And when I think about the, when I think about leads 23 I don't really think about because there were so many different challenges, I don't really think about those, those impacts on me, the things that I think about are like, very, very unique moments, like, you know, the moment that the fireworks went off at the end of the opening ceremony, and we all exhale this huge breath and said, We did it. So our first big events, the biggest thing in the year, and we did it and nobody died, and nobody fell off the stage.

And you know, everything went perfectly fine from a health and safety, which is always the thing that I get particularly stressed about, you know, and watching everyone dance on in the stadium, or it being four o'clock in the morning, absolutely chucking it down with rain watching all these amazing people build this barn and singing or, you know, rain features quite heavily during leaves. 20s or being you know, in the middle of Roundhay Park on children's day where it was torrential and I ran out of all the possible jokes about Noah's Ark within the first hour of the event. But watching all of these kids mess about in the rain with all of these different materials, building things and then watching our team like, just be really really positive about it and give all this energy even though they were drenched. You know, people have been stood up there for 12 hours in the pouring rain. So I Oh, you know, Moon Palace arriving and everybody just been incomplete or if this bus and how beautiful it was and watching the sunset in. In St. Aidans nature park, you know, on the first release of nest, I think I hope that for everyone, even though it's been absolutely, like beyond my expectation in terms of how difficult it's been in different moments, I really do hope that for everyone, they have those types of memories of the programme itself because that's what it was all about. All of those different challenges and all those different moments. It wasn't about trying to get the right statistics. It was about creating these exceptional, like memories for everyone, including the staff. I particularly loved the audience member Kully Thiarai that thought we had made the lightning happen oh, yeah. And, and and that we had so so nest, a collaboration with National Youth Theatre with 100 and 100 plus young people performing incident agents nature parks. which is, you know, which was a real rare revelation for many of the audience who'd never known that that was a city, you know that that was a site that was an old mining site.

That's now Nature Park was so close to them. But there were, the performances would start at dusk.

And it was set in 2015 in the future, and it talks about climate and, and the loss of birds. And there were moments cuz you processed, the audience's started in one location processed across the site, round the lake and back up again, now, just eavesdropping on some of the audience conversation, which was just joyful, because if you've not experienced that kind of work, then of course, why would you know that, you know, this, these things can some some of these things are deliberately played out, you know, the soundscapes that you're hearing our recorded soundscapes, but then you've also got nature, you've got the flock of geese that at six o'clock would suddenly fly across in a, in a squadron or whatever, you know, and like the, there were times when the public would be saying, how did they queue them, but you know, those moments when on that on the last night, you know, because there was an electrical, electric storm and, and the show ended up having to be pulled halfway through. But the fact that the audience thought we had the capacity to build it, Storm,

because this was sequences all about storm, and there was, you know, all those thunder in the sound effects, Kully Thiarai but that but that, that also kind of plays back to our original theme, because one of the things we wanted to do was sort of make work that was original and surprising. And I think that with some of the signature programmes, that's what we tried to do. And, you know, and for us, you know, the fact that the National Youth Theatre are coming back for the next three years into the city every summer to run their core programme on the back of that collaboration is fantastic. You know, that's sort of that's a different sort of legacy because it's also about investment coming back into the city but also a national organisation recognising the level of talent that's here in the region, you know, that they want to support and grow and develop. So you know, however hard those moments are in the panic that you might be in there is also the joy of watching the public. And there are a couple of moments when because the park is open people who just come for their, on their bicycles or something suddenly encountering something. And these, these, this group of young people sort of, kind of go what's going on what's going on? Oh, I'm gonna stay with this and hanging around and then returning every night. Those are the things that for me feel like it's all been worth it. Because you don't know what that's gonna do to them in the future, whether that's about understanding the landscape they're in or whether that's we've switched something on around music or writing or performance or poetry, whatever it might be. Those things are the ways that you know are reflective of doors that were open for me only by chance, not because those opportunities existed for someone like me and so part of our job for the year is, what if we managed to do for for those people here in this year, that won't make big stories, but they they will matter for the city in the future I guess.

Will Baldwin-Pask It looks like there's kind of multiple audiences obviously got the public got the Leeds audience. But the way you kind of described the preparation and all the build up to, there's also the audience, which is the sector. And you've alluded to Emma with bringing a lot of them on board through the Partnership Programme and working with them as it became clear what the year was going to be.

But there's no doubt there's members of the sector that haven't gone on board with it. You know, why? Why do you think you haven't been able to take everybody in the sector with you on the journey?

Emma Beverley I think a lot of the conversations that I had with cultural partners both through the bidding process and then in in the in the development of the programme for delivery. One of the things that we had to really acknowledge was how hard we are to work with. Because we are temporary in this city. We're brand new organisation, which means that we don't necessarily have everything in place in order to be a brilliant partner. And for some people, they can deal with that and they could work with that.

And then so for example, all of the partner projects had to follow a very similar process to what we did when we were doing feasibility studies for the signature projects. And they had presented budgets that were three different levels. That that is a that is so difficult. I can't you know, I felt very torn the whole way through it. But at the at that point, we could not be clear about what the budget was that we had. And so for some people, some some people going through that and working with a partner that is in a place of such massive uncertainty just might not be possible and unreasonable

and feasible. We did a big call out for seed commissions and we co commissioned quite a lot of local partners and artists through that, to pay them to go through a feasibility process with us. So you know, no one was going on that kind of period of r&d and feasibility study without being supported financially for that time to do that. But a number of people by the end of that process either came to us and said, actually the idea we've proposed to you we said it would cost x but actually it's gonna be y, actually the idea we propose to you, we can't deliver it until 2024/2025. Or the idea that we stepped forward with we now realise we don't want to do it. So I think there are a number of reasons as to why people might not have felt like Leeds 2023 was the right environment or programme for them. There's also a huge amount of people who have and one of the things that is difficult is trying to capture and communicate their experiences because often, when people are happy and contented with what they've done and proud of what they've achieved, they don't necessarily speak about that. You know, we've we're getting evaluations through right now that are telling us some incredible things. About different experiences that partners of artists and artists have had with us.

You know, just yesterday, I got a message from one of the artists who been working on an exchange a hip hop exchange project for us, between Leeds and Lille, saying it was a really extraordinary experience for them and how grateful they were. These aren't necessarily things that are around on socials or, you know, spoken about very publicly. So, for me, I'm actually really looking forward to completing the evaluation process because we've done quite an extensive set of baseline studies and surveys. We've done a lot of reflection work, and debriefs with different partners still got a long way to go on that. But I think that hopefully through that, we will get a good picture of what the experience has been beyond anecdotal. And then the other thing that I would say about it is there was no time for the SEC to really reckon with the fact that we weren't a European Capital of Culture.

There was just no time for it. And everybody had completely different expectations and perceptions of what that actually meant and and what it should do, and what it could do. And I'm sure that if there were other people that were leading on the programme to you and myself, Kali, they would have done it completely differently. So there are so many different versions of what this year could have been. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that either. But the real question is Has it done what it's intended to set out to do? And we're trying to be as transparent with that as possible with things like the open innovations data dashboard from a kind of statistical point of view, but the big challenge is going to be telling the stories behind the data. and making sure that the evaluation process really does bring some forward and bring some of it out. Yeah, Kully Thiarai and I the only other thing I would say is that, of course for lots of people, for a long time we were seen as a funding body And that wasn't our role. And so the framework around the partner. The produce programmes partner programme was changed. You know, framed around themes and around what we were trying to do and so that's generally what people in the sector wanted what they wanted, in some instances where. or something that they were wanting to make happen that they hadn't been able to make happen.

And even though, you know, we tried very, you know, tried in lots of different ways to sort of clarify the framework and the same thematic ways in which we could link and offer up seed commissions where we could Nevertheless, there will have been people who are disappointed who felt like we weren't serving their needs, but we're never going to be able to do that because, you know, we, we had to cut so much out of the original budget lines anyway because of what because the circumstances which we've talked about, so much so I think I think the the bigger question for all of

us is that the sector is in such crisis and has been for a number of years and no one organisation is going to be able to solve that problem. And actually at the moment, I would also say that, you know, sometimes we can get into our own little spirals of inward agitation, whereas actually, there's a bigger question for us all to be coming together around which is how do we galvanise an energy that argues for culture in all its myriad forms, and a proper investment in that in that because not in the national picture? It feels like you know, we're pitching ourselves against each other as opposed to kind of going, here's, you know, here's a bigger problem we've got to solve and actually on the one hand, government is saying that the creative industries is the fastest growing and the most lucrative, you know, source of GDP. On the other hand, like slicing and cutting and and destroying the very access points for new new talent to emerge for new opportunities to exist and to also reduce the ability of existing organisations to maximise their impact on their reach and the work they make. So there are there are some big strategic tensions being played out and actually requires all of us to work together to argue our case collectively and not you know, not for the small organisations to argue with the big organisations, the NPOs and the non NPOs. You know, the portfolio organisations, there's, that division is not helpful, and I think that's a big challenge for everybody.

Will Baldwin-Pask And do you think that's like the main thing that you would have learned from this you know, you've done 12 months of delivering a variety of art forms and putting on loads of different projects and like you says, It's so tough for the sector at the moment there’s probably probably advice or some insight that you guys could provide that can be that can be helpful. Is it that that sense? That collaborative collaboration and holistic way of talking about the arts is one of the best ways of trying to, you know, support the sector? Are there things that you've seen audiences are responding to that people could benefit from knowing about?

Kully Thiarai I think, I think what we're trying to do with our evaluation, and also just some of the work we're doing, already around, knowledge sharing is part of our sort of saying, Look, this is, this is what we've, you know, this is what we tried to do. This is what the consequences of that were and these are the kinds of questions have come up for us. I mean, particularly in the light of the region sort of approached years of culture and Bradford obviously in 2025. Being a UK city of culture, our our aspiration has been and support to or, you know, streams are combined authority as well to kind of look at culture and support what learning we've had and we were doing that. And we'll continue to do that in terms of, you know, evaluation and reporting. I think I think this the issues around the sector aren't unique to Leeds. They're across the country, you know. And that sort of sense of the crisis that's in the sector, whether you're a freelancer or an established artist or an organisation I would say to an event yesterday where that was the major subject around all of the either even the big organisations, you know, and what the challenges are around investment levels, but also what's happening in the world and our responsibility to that, you know, where are we as artists when the world is on fire in so many ways and you know, got role to play. But in the end, I think all all we can do is sort of like this is what we this is the belief system of values we had and this is the ambition we tried to work to and these are the things that we did. And here are some bits of information about that as to what people felt about it. And yes, of course, others might have done it better, or they might have done it differently.

But this is one version, and we hope and we gave it our best shot. And, you know, I'm really interested and we'll stay alert to what the consequences long term consequences of something like this will be.

Emma Beverley Yeah, I mean, you know, one of the dilemmas of these these types of big temporary events is that it is really hard to to prove what their impact is immediately. And actually is only through looking at legacy from you know, just in terms of UK context specifically like Liverpool and Glasgow. Which we can now see. One of the things that the mayor of Liverpool said when they released the evaluation from Eurovision was that they couldn't have delivered Eurovision and got the city, that level of profile and attention if they hadn't made all the mistakes that they made during the European Capital of Culture year. And I loved that because that's like that is exactly right. It's the learning as a city and as a sector that you will take from it. That really helps to continue the drive and the ambition and the confidence that you get out of having these big moments. And I think that for me, the confidence side of it is a bit that I really want to make sure we do hold on to because the the easier thing to do in the context of the all these crises, is to really go back to basics and withdraw and keep within that frame of not continuing to kind of push and take risks. And I actually genuinely understand why that can happen and and you know, all the things that local authorities across the country are going through at the moment in relation to their culture budgets, you know, it's it's really scary stuff.

However, coming together collectively to go where do we see ourselves as a sector and not just looking to for example, your local authority to solve that problem is very, very important. And taking leadership and ownership within that context is also very, very important. You know, one of the things that I'm really pleased with as a result of some of the programming that we've done this year is through the bidding process when we were doing lots of consultation about what would be valuable for you, as a leader of a cultural organisation or as an artist. To get out of this experience of being part of Leeds 23. A huge thing that came forward was the fact that a city of our scales should have a much better international network the country internationally, and it should be seen by other international cultural colleagues as a place where they want to come and work. Work and artists in the city should have more access to international work in this city. And there are obviously some really great people who've been spearheading that anyway, you know, for example, like me, let that transform festival you know, she she really wanted that to be an international festival for those two that we could build on but across the course of the year, we're now looking at over 50 new international collaborations and partnerships, and some of those are institution to institution level.

Some of them are artists to artists level, and there's been a whole range of different work that's come out of that and experiences that have come out of that, that will have a legacy. You know, there are connections that have been made during 2023 that the outcomes of that will be seen in 2024 and 2025. There are ways in which people have thought about their work differently because they're not just thinking about it in a lead or a UK context. And I'm thrilled about that, because I think that even though it may not be solving a crisis in the art sector when it comes to the positioning of culture in the world that's on fire. And I think that in you know, the the international connections that have been formed and the learning from that will go on to really really benefit the city because some of the best ways to learn how to solve something that's happening in your own backyard is to find out how people are doing it hundreds 1000s of miles away and you don't have to reinvent the wheel all the time. And that is something that I think because of because of being an island and because of the way that the UK is sometimes I feel like we don't look to our colleagues and our neighbours, even just in Europe for solutions to some of these problems. And I think that they do exist in an international context. And a lot of those solutions to those problems are really driven by the sector.

So rather than the government. So that's one element of what we've done that I really hoped has continued to kind of impact and benefit people going forward. And something that I'm also equally

quite proud about is we've been doing some interviews with lots of different types of people about what their relationship to 2023 has been. You know, one of those people is a real expert when it comes to European capitals of culture. She's you know, she works on Glasgow. She's worked on lots of them across the EU. And she's been on the judging panels and things like that and you know, something that she said was that Leeds will be a case study for European capitals of culture going forward, and it's already had an impact in that context. And our colleagues across Europe who are delivering their own years are looking to us as examples of good practice. So I'm also equally looking forward to seeing what our impact is not just in Leeds, but in that wider European network to because it's not it is obviously about benefiting the city, but there are wider impacts that will be felt outside of Leeds as well. So that's exciting.

Will Baldwin-Pask Do you have any specific words of wisdom for either the guise of bofit Who's going to do something similar in a couple of years while in a year's time or any any year of cultural insights, programme directors and artistic directors anywhere? Well, Emma Beverley there is a fantastic document that was created by a few different people who have delivered European Cups culture that that one of them sent to me my first couple of weeks in the job and it's called a list of crises every single European Capital of Culture will go through. It's four pages were sent that to Bradford. But I think that you know what's really funny for me, in terms of these, being part of this, is the fact that that document exists to begin with is very funny to me, you know, there is work to be done there. Then if we know that these are the things that everyone will face as deep challenges, what can we do again, is collectively in terms of major events to try and address some of those and we have a great programme with spirit of 2012 and Bradford 2025, which is about knowledge transfer, which is about the future of these temporary events, tensions that exists within them. Are we all repeating the same mistakes as one another? Is there a better way to handover because there isn't a pack you don't start and someone says here's how to so what are the better ways that you can transition between these these these temporary events and share some of that learning? So I hope the evaluation from that as well will be helpful going forward in the future for other people to doing these types of things. But the context of Bradford is also extraordinarily different to the context of Leeds. And it's a different programme. You know, it's a UK city of culture programme which has different focuses and priorities. So of course things are transferable but again, it's a completely different isn't it calling?

Kully Thiarai Context matters, usually, and I think sometimes we don't talk about that enough. You know, as I said, right at the beginning, the context for us has been an extraordinary few years, isn't it where the world around us, over which we have had so little control has had a huge impact on the people and the place, and Bradford's a different city. It's got great leadership team there, and I'm sure they will, you know, be bold and confident about what they want to do and I I would encourage them to continue to to be ambitious about their artistic plans, because actually, that's where you make the difference because if you if you're too shy or too small, in your thinking, then that's not where transformation happens. transformation happens when you take risks and sometimes those risks. You know, sometimes that results in things not working, but in the learning that done by the fact that you tried, more things will happen and stronger things will happen in the sector and the public will engage with

that. So yeah, no words of wisdom other than you know, go for the go for your instincts and make the best thing you can under the context that you're working in.

Will Baldwin-Pask It's been so fascinating hearing about all the detail that goes into a year, like this and also really great to hear the the personal side of it as well from the both of you. I have a couple of I guess nicer questions to wrap it up with the first one is out of the whole year. Can you pick a moment that you witness that captured? What you think is like the essence of Leeds?

Emma Beverley Well, I don't know if it's the essence of leads, but it's one that we all talk about quite often, which was so for the awakening, which was the opening ceremony in order to get a ticket. You were asked to submit a piece of art and at the point of making the decision that that was the process by which you would attend the opening ceremony which was taking place at Headingley stadium. That was a that was a risky shout. And there was a lot of turmoil around it. But it felt like a really, really interesting, unique kind of provocation of who gets to be an artist who gets to be creative, what is the value of creativity, and it also spoke to a number of different things that like, you know, what is the how do we view the economy, you know, had we the economic side of culture, and more than anything, it meant that we were going to create this incredible bank of citizen artworks that we could continue to use as part of the programme across a year. So there was huge, there was definitely moments went locally where we were like, well, is anyone gonna do this or anyone gonna come? And they did and it was amazing to start to see all of the artworks getting submitted. But the one of the moments for me that I hadn't expected to, you know, I'm not a big crier, but I hadn't expected to burst into tears was when people started entering into the stadium, and we displayed all of the artworks all over the concourses and people started to look for their artworks and find them and get their pictures taken with them.

And it just felt incredibly special, you know, regardless of anything happened, for people to really see themselves as artists as part of the event and to have that moment where they were like, you know, and there was one particular kid who who found it found his work as a lark. Oh my god, that is so cool. And I just lost it a little bit. We had the whole events ago, but I was just really, really overwhelmed.

Emma Beverley Yeah, I mean, I've been some sad moments. But you know, it was really overwhelming. I think and I hadn't, I hadn't expected that. To feel that when when watching people find their, their work there.

And also just very validating just a really, really invalidating moment to go okay. It was the right thing to do, even though you kind of knew it. And you got sometimes really hard to communicate wildly until you have those particular experiences.

Kully Thiarai Gosh, you know, I I am I find it really hard to think of a single moment. Think there's something about you know, us talking about letting culture lose, which I think captured what we were trying to do. And I think the team, you know, are bigger than everybody. And in the process of getting to that sort of tagline in a way was I was being expansive about how we think about culture. And I still I mean, I've been in the arts for decades now. I can still walk into places and feel like I shouldn't be there. Now that shouldn't be the case. Just shouldn't. But sometimes you're, you know, the perception of how you are seeing or in places which are seen to be much, not for you. I know what that feels like. And

you know, part of that part of ambition for the year was to sort of try and find ways to kind of avoid that sort of sense of disinformation now. It's not you can't change that overnight, but you can change people but you can create spaces where people can bump into art or ask questions about art, you know, so whatever. The whatever your perception of making a stand by Michael Pinsky in city square, you know, some people loved it, some people hated it, some people thought it was complete waste of money. Some people used it as marriage proposal sites or yoga class sites or, you know, busking sites, right, because there was a really interesting sort of sense of the public encountering things that they might not normally associate with art or culture or for them, and I think that's the biggest kick I get out of our year is the joy that people's that's on people's faces when they come across the hibiscus flower, you know, on Meadow Lane by Yinka Shonibare, and you just you can see for a moment if they've not seen it before they just, well, what what is that doing here? You know, and that that's what gives me a real uplift and it's sort of echoes what you're talking about, you know, with the awakening and the inner cities and films we made, there was a wonderful farmer who just burst into tears at the end of the show and went I had never thought it would be like this because we made a short film about him making his submission and you notice the emotional connections we make through the work, you know, the transformation of places and spaces that will will be the memories that people carry. And that's why for me the closing was really important and, and yes, some people might see it as sort of too insular, but it was really kind of looking back in the year going stories matter. And they they're really important to people and to places and together we made a lot of stories. And those are going to be the myths of the future for this city. They're the they're the things that people are going to talk about when they look back and they might not be able to do that just yet, but that's what's gonna matter. And that's what is powerful about storytelling for a city of scale that we do.

Will Baldwin-Pask So, final question actually isn't to do with leads here of culture. I would actually just love to know this year. Any good recommendations for arts and culture going to go and you haven't got any events, but you're going to any festivals? What should people go to? Well, Emma Beverley we have just come back from seeing Tartu celebrate the opening of their year of culture, so they are European Capital of Culture. 2024 They have an amazing programme on over this summer. So I will definitely be going back for that. But of course, like a lot closer. Wakefield and Calderdale both have years of culture this year, and they've got some really amazing projects planned that you know, right on the doorstep. So I'm really really looking forward to seeing what what they have happening.

They've got some of my favourite artists and companies coming into the region, too. So that's great.

Kully Thiarai Yeah. There's lots of there's lots of stuff happening in the city already. And across the Pennines you know, there's some fantastic international work happening, so I would just check it out enjoy the adventure of looking for new and different things.