First projects announced
We canât wait to share our full 2021 programme with you, starting with Compass Festival in March – here are the first projects:

Joshua Sofaer
Museums in Peopleâs Homes
Would you like a visit from Joshua Sofaer and Museums in Peopleâs Homes in your home during 2021?
Joshua Sofaer has created a mobile museum comprising 14 artworks, each representing a collector in Leeds, telling the fascinating stories of the museums people keep in their homes.
Book a tour to see objects from our portable museum â and you can even visit a fun size cafĂ© and tiny gift shop.

Joshua Sofaer
Museums in Peopleâs Homes
Would you like a museum to come and visit you in your home?Â
We have met with people across Leeds who collect things in their homes, we have heard stories about the things they collect, how they collect them, and why they do it.
Thereâs a woman that canât resist a charity shop bargain, a man that has acquired hospitality gifts from around the world, a bomb disposal technicianâs keepsakes, a Buffy superfan, a recycling obsessive, someone who canât help but stoop to pick up her catâs whiskers, and a guy who lives in a house of drums, among others.
Working with furniture designers Plaey, Joshua Sofaer has created a mobile museum comprising 14 separate artworks, each of which represents a collection housed by people he has met in Leeds.
Based on the Wunderkammer or cabinet of curiosities, Joshua will present a tour of objects from a portable museum and you can even visit a fun size café and tiny gift shop.
Using a variety of materials and processes, objects which sometimes have little to no monetary value, have been transformed into âmuseum standardâ artefacts, worthy of the high value we should place on people, their stories and personal collections.
Museums in Peopleâs Homes by Joshua Sofaer, 2021. Cabinet designed and built with Plaey. Commissioned by Compass Festival.
Register your early interest now for a performance of Museums in Peopleâs Homes, in your own home, for yourself and guests in 2021. Perhaps you will be inspired to start your own museum too.

Etheridge & Persighetti (Small Acts)
Public House: The Yorkshire Square
Public House: The Yorkshire Square is a 12ft x 12ft pop-up pub bringing a ferment of connections, conversations and experiences, to the heart of Leeds iconic Kirkgate Market.
Explore the enduring role of pubs as places of community, intergenerational exchange, entertainment and activism â or simply have a pint.

Etheridge & Persighetti (Small Acts)
Public House: The Yorkshire Square
Public House: The Yorkshire Square is a 12ft x 12ft pop-up pub bringing a ferment of connections, conversations and experiences, to the heart of Leeds iconic Kirkgate Market.
Modelled on the dimensions of the fermenting vessel made famous by Tetleyâs Brewery, The Yorkshire Square has been reimagined as a four-sided pub serving brews and views from across Leeds.
The unprecedented closure during 2020âs lockdown of the UKâs already endangered pubs has highlighted both the fragility and the importance of the Public House. From mediated social hub to traditional tavern, The Yorkshire Square invites you to explore the idea that the pub of the future has many faces.
Pick from a menu of tap talks and heritage tours from guest presenters, help create tomorrows heritage by adding your opinions and views to the brew, or simply pop in for a pint.
Since 2017 Katie Etheridge and Simon Persighetti (Small Acts) have been working with Leeds brewers, publicans, campaigners and individuals to explore the future of social landscapes by investigating the enduring role of pubs as places of community, intergenerational exchange, entertainment, (hi)story telling and activism. The Yorkshire Square is the culmination of this work shining a spotlight on the relationships between pubs, people and places.
Public House: The Yorkshire Square by Etheridge & Persighetti (Small Acts). Commissioned and produced by Compass Festival. Made possible by the Heritage Lottery Fund with support from Leeds Civic Trust. Many thanks to Leeds Kirkgate Market and Nomadic Beers.
As well as looking to the future of pubs, we are also drawing inspiration from the past and will be recreating one of Leedsâ lost pubs as part of The Yorkshire Square. Do you have a favourite lost pub of Leeds, which youâd like to see brought back to life?

ZU-UK
Pick Me Up (and hold me tight)
Pick Me Up (and hold me tight) is an invitation for collective listening, experienced through all public pay-phones in Leeds.
Created by ZU-UK in response to rising suicide rates across the country, Pick Me Up (and hold me tight) is a gentle but thought-provoking audio experience that explores contemporary loneliness and exposes the edges of our humanness.

ZU-UK
Pick Me Up (and hold me tight)
Pick Me Up (and hold me tight) is an invitation for collective listening, experienced through public pay-phones across Leeds.Â
Created by award-winning theatre and digital art company ZU-UK in response to rising suicide rates across the country, Pick Me Up (and hold me tight) is an audio event which measure how good at listening we really are.
Public phone boxes across Leeds will ring every day at 11am until the end of the festival. When you pick up the phone, youâll participate in a gentle but thought-provoking audio experience that explores contemporary loneliness, and exposes the edges of our humanness. It’s an invitation to pause, take stock, and explore what kind of listeners we are.
At a time when suicide is the most common cause of death for men in Britain aged 20-49 and 1 in 4 people are affected by mental health issues at some point in their lives, Pick Me Up (and hold me tight) offers an opportunity to engage in a mass act of contemplation about changes in the fabric of our communities post-Covid, the shrinking of public space and contact between fellow humans – on an ambitious yet intimate scale.
Pick Me Up (and hold me tight) by ZU UK. Commissioned by Compass Festival.
Many thanks to Mind in Camden for their support in the creation of the pilot of this project, the crowdfunders who made the research and development possible and to our team of volunteers who helped audit all the telephone boxes in Leeds.
Your local phone box needs you! Weâre gathering information about the public phones of Leeds and we need your help. Nominate your local phone box to be a part of the project by paying it a visit and following this link:

Festival 2021
More projects announced soon!
Keep an eye on our website, follow us on social media and sign up to our newsletter to get the latest updates.

Festival 2021
More projects announced soon!
Keep an eye on our website, follow us on social media and sign up to our newsletter to get the latest updates.