Director and co-founder Karen Watson reflects on her time at East Street Arts ahead of her retirement in June.

Karen Watson and Jon Wakeman, East Street Arts' Founding Directors, have each been awarded a MBE by His Majesty The King in the New Year 2023 Honours List in recognition of their services to the arts.

COMMISSION IS NOW CLOSED. How could you draw time and change in Leeds? New and emerging artists and illustrators are being invited to submit work to a major heritage and regeneration project. Deadline for submissions 6/12/22

East Street Arts launches In Practice, a podcast dedicated to supporting artists and their collaborators. A catalogue of episodes showcases curated conversations around artist development, place making and more. How do you sustain a career making art, and what does that look like?

East Street Arts has been successful in our application to continue as an Arts Council England (ACE) National Portfolio Organisation. This news from the latest funding round means we can continue our mission to secure better outcomes for artists alongside tackling economic decline in towns and cities through creative and cultural interventions.

Here at East Street Arts, we’re delighted to be supporting Leeds Palestinian Film Festival on the ‘Humans Of Palestine’ exhibition alongside this year's Palestinian Film Festival. The show supports and showcases photography from The Network of Photographers for Palestine, a collective of activists and photographers seeking to provide Palestinian photographers with a worldwide audience and varied platforms.

Exploring public art through workshops, exhibitions and discussion.

In August we welcomed 18 young people to a week-long summer school of creative activities around the theme of 'My Environment'. After the success of the 2021 Summer School, the young people requested the focus for 2022 be around Sustainability.

This July we invited GUILD residency members into our transformed project space and the Art Hostel, for a week of conversations, activities, reflections and discussions.

As Convention House enters the next phase of its continual development, it prepares to house the next generation of artists and their collaborators with thanks to the Weston Culture Fund.

Taking place in August 2021, the My Neighbourhood Summer School was a free week-long summer school for young people aged 9-12 local to the Burmantofts, Lincoln Green and Mabgate neighbourhoods.

We met up with Daisy James, a visual storyteller and co-founder of Lunchtime Practice, to discuss her commission for the 2021 Guild Conversations series.