Things to do in Leeds
Creative TouristLeeds is in a reflective mood this season. Across its galleries, cinemas and music venues, artists are probing the fragile systems we live within — from climate and care to memory and identity. The result is a cultural calendar that’s as thought-provoking as it is visually striking.
At the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, Sarah Roberts: SICK transforms clinical care into candy-coloured chaos, exploring the environments where wellness and bureaucracy collide. Over at the Henry Moore Institute, two deeply meditative shows examine impermanence from different angles: Sarah Casey draws out the ghostly forms of archaeological objects resurfacing from Alpine ice, while Roger Ackling scorches sunbeams into salvaged wood, turning time and light into art.
At the Thackray Museum of Medicine, Blood: Ties and Tensions takes a visceral approach to the subject of care, examining how blood flows through not just our bodies, but our beliefs, rituals and institutions.
The cinematic strand of the Leeds International African Arts Festival brings African perspectives to the fore at Hyde Park Picture House, while outside, Hannah Platt’s Playing Out turns public space into a playground of sculpture and photographic wit.
And in the midst of it all, shoegazers DIIV return to Leeds for the first time in nearly a decade — bringing an urgent and immersive new album that’s shot through with ideas about how late-stage capitalism affects society.
If there’s a thread tying it all together, it’s this: a city asking how we care, what we preserve, and what we choose to bring into the light.
