The city has become a graveyard. The gap-toothed grin of the high street distorts our sense of reality as generally worthless businesses open and close and the centre shifts eternally. There will come a time when the dust settles at the end of civilisation and nature starts to reclaim the cities in the absence of the human animal. The end is inevitable, the question is, are we just filling time on this planet, and if so how do we fill the time between now and then?

We can continue on down the path of destruction; argument, division, conflict on a personal level and war on a global scale, or we can play. We can find excuses to set difference aside and look at how we can live to the benefit of ourselves and others. This is not about altruism though, I do not believe in altruism. Only by considering ourselves can we make a difference to the lives of others, we do after all have to find ways to live -to make ends meet- and in this capitalist society, that is not an easy job, one which nobody is prepared to help with. In this sense are we capitalists or exploited workers suffering from Stockholm syndrome?

Our cities are represented in the popular consciousness by things such as Monopoly; games that encourage the stockpiling of assets and desire to win by financially crippling all opponents. But for French postman Ferdinand Cheval (1836-1924), work represented something else; the chance to play and create. Over the course of 33 years Facteur Cheval gathered stones as he walked his postal route and created the ‘Palais Idéal’ a grand folly built out of a seemingly pointless activity.

Cheval was the inspiration for ‘The Situationist International’ art movement, who provided the inspiration for the title of this SituationLeeds related article ‘Sous les pavés, la plage! – Beneath the pavement the beach!’  

Which brings me on to the main feature of this item, I will address the politics at the end.

Situation Leeds 2026 is DIY, collaborative and open-ended. Rather than a top-down curated programme, it is formed through a growing network of artists, organisations and spaces who are shaping the festival together. This approach prioritises process over polish, supporting artists to develop and present new work in ways that are responsive, experimental and rooted in the city.

Situation Leeds Press Release

As part of this, BasementArtsProject will be bringing a number of projects together and presenting them here in South Leeds. Alongside an exhibition of photography of South Leeds (19.05 – 21.06), Garry Barker’s Listening City will see a series of ceramic ears dispersed around ‘The Corner’ he will come back to ask “how can the city listen to us?”. Lane Shipsey will be involved in a photographic portrait project whilst Kate Jennings will be inviting the public to assist her in the creation of a community canvas, and the Ad Hoch Film Collective will be screening a new short experimental film ‘More Than Water’.

Basement has always sought to bring the fun; whether it be in the form of an anthropomorphised Frog making friends with folks in the street (or the local Aldi and Poundland), or in creating an oasis of (mostly) calm away from the madness of the street in ‘The Corner’ Pocket Sculpture Park with its monumental sculpture in the form of ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ that stands at its heart. The last fifteen years has been a monumental effort to create, through BasementArtsProject, a sense of stability, held in place by the glue that is art. The fact that we are still operating, with very little income -mostly from the pocket of myself and the artists with whom we work- shows that whilst everything else around eventually crumbles- we have succeeded in creating that stability. In the last four years we have increased the reach of our project with a sculpture park, concerts, performance art projects various workshops and a frog. For SituationLeeds we are going to bring a whole load more and along with it a connection to the art of the wider city. Art is the glue binding the fabric of our society in a cohesive whole.

Much of our society is built on an elite and capitalist rule that says one must ‘divide to conquer’. We at BasementArtsProject have no interest in such destructive mantras and instead say, join us, buy the ticket and take the ride (the ticket is always free at Basement btw), and be part of a unified community. It is a drum I will never stop banging. 

SituationLeeds Events

BasementArtsProject
Lane Shipsey | Hard Shoulder Motorway City
19 May – 21 June

The Corner ‘Pocket Sculpture Park’
Kate Jennings | Community Canvas Project
11-24 May 2026

Community Participation Painting Event
16 May 2026 | 11am – 4pm

Garry Barker | The Listening City
16 May | 11am – 4pm & 9:30pm -10pm

Ad Hoch | More Than Water (Film Screening)
16th May | 9:30pm -10pm

Election Special | Faces and Threads

Recently I have been working with Dr Lone Sorensen of the University of Leeds, Artist Parham Galamander and Longsight Art Space in Manchester. The project rooted is in ideas around Climate Change and how it is perceived through the lenses of legacy and social media. Back in April we ran a painting and collage workshop at Involve Community Centre Hunslet, followed by another two days later at Longsight Art Space. It was an interesting opportunity for a pre-election discussion around the issue of climate change in the context of politics and media, but with no party bias; rules were set for conversations at the outset to ensure that climate got a fair hearing without getting bogged down in politics.

In May we invite you to join us for a post-election follow-up in which we continue to assist Parham in the creation of this set of huge canvas’ as we look to review the landscape a month down the line from starting the project. 

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…
Attributed to Churchill but he was quoting an earlier unsourced aphorism

People often talk about an imperfect democracy. Others talk of elected dictatorships. Personally I do not believe that democracy exists, or has at least been tried yet. Voting is not democracy. Voting is an exercise in populism; a point at which the temperature is taken and a course set based upon the winning side. But in reality, true democracy would be to set sail based on the best interests of 100% rather than a portion of the vote, especially considering the prevalence of the infernal ratio in the case of big decisions. 

We are not voting for who is best, but who is least worst!

During the run-up to this election I decided to nail my colours to the mast and endorse a candidate. An action that I have taken a couple of times over the years on the basis that I know what I don’t want as much as what I do. For me personally, politics is pragmatism that directly relates to real-world consequences. There are certain things that I really do not want and other things that I would prefer. That sounds like a centrist kind of decision making, which It probably is, which is weird when I consider that filling in online ‘which way will you vote’ surveys I come out as hard left, verging on communist even. But, there is the rub, knowing what we would like to see in an ideal world and how that relates to the real world. What would be your ideal world? In what direction would you like human society to progress? Integrity in voting, as in life, is about making decisions based on ones own sense of self within this world, not being swayed by the winds as they hit you from all sides and only changing when facts dictate that you may be making a wrong move. It is not for me to try and influence others, or for others to try and influence me, we must go with the motivation of our hearts and the courage of our convictions.  

 I hope we will see you for fun and frolics here on ‘The Corner’ for SituationLeeds. Come by ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ on Saturday morning (9th May) and say hello. Welcome to Art…