Art Hostel Leeds: Mabgate's new cutting edge accommodation in a massive former presbytery

That’s surely not how most creatives in their 20s would describe their output, but she has her reasons.

In what’s thought to be a UK first, the local and international creators commissioned to redesign 12 rooms at the new hostel off Mabgate, run by East Street Arts, have developed different immersive stories for the city’s visitors to explore.

The accommodation, situated in an immense former presbytery near the city centre, opened to a sell-out first weekend in late February after moving from its pilot location in Kirkgate.

Bentley-Fox, 26, a University of Leeds Art and Design graduate, was commissioned to recreate one of the rooms – titled The Honeymoon Suite –deciding to combine items of social and personal history for visitors to interact with during their stay.

“Part of the commission was responding to the people who have lived in that space before and so I created wallpaper using motifs from their wallpaper, which included the Yorkshire Evening Post rose,” says Bentley-Fox.

She played with the room’s existing decor, which evoked a bygone Britishness, and incorporated elements including the white rose wallpaper, doilies, lace curtain and framed newspaper reports. Bentley-Fox also sealed into a resin floor everyday detritus such as shopping lists and notes that she found around the city, as well as images from her late grandfather and photography documenting her own travels.“It’s quite a sentimental project, I suppose, and some people might think it’s a bit kitsch or a bit twee, but I’m kind of playing into that,” she says.

Hostel manager Rhian Aitken, 39, is originally from Middlesbrough but has worked in Leeds hospitality for years and used to run the Arcadia pub in Headingley. She explains how the idea behind this hostel came from Karen Watson and Jon Wakeman, the artistic directors who founded East Street Arts in 1993.

“They have always travelled a lot and used to stay in hostels, they like to chat to people, find out about stuff that you wouldn’t find out if you were staying in a little chain hotel somewhere, that all look exactly the same. They really like communal kitchens, and sitting around having a debate on an evening. So they’ve had a vision for this property for the last 10 years or so.”

The charity wanted somewhere bespoke to host artists coming to Leeds from around the UK and abroad, instead of putting them up at impersonal hotels or spare rooms.

“It’s very much about how we wanted to host and then, an expansion of that, in how we wanted to show off Leeds and showcase a lot of other stuff that you wouldn’t normally find,” says Aitken.

“Leeds is prolific for DIY music spaces, art spaces – all of these lovely things that we find out about in our day-to-day lives but if you just pop to Leeds for two nights you might never, ever find.”

They ran the hostel in Kirkgate between May 2016 and January 2019 to ensure it was a viable business model. It hosted more than 10,000 guests from over 115 countries.

“We were looking for a new site – we’d looked at different places in Leeds and slightly further afield – and one day one of our staff team came in and went, ‘Have you seen that next door is up for auction?’ We managed to get in and speak to the auctioneers before it went to auction.”

They managed to get a mortgage with the help of Unity Trust Bank, which means the hostel now has a permanent home. The building itself is a former presbytery of St Patrick’s Catholic

Church near Patrick Studios, a former boxing and social club which East Street Arts took over 18 years ago.

“Originally, when Karen and Jon took on Patrick Studios in 2004, they came over for a visit and there was one priest living in this huge building with a tiny little old lady housekeeper living up in the attic,” says Aitken.

All of the nuns were packed into the neighbouring convent which is now the charity’s own Convention House.

The presbytery later became a bedsit for people with different needs, some of which East Street Arts helped to relocate with their permission. It is also working with Burmantofts, Lincoln Green and Mabgate locals on a Neighbourhood Plan, which will give them a say with Leeds City Council on how the area is run – the first to be led by artists in the UK, says Aitken.

“This space is incredibly accessible. This is not elitist at all. You don’t have to be an artist, you don’t have to be a creative. Just from our first weekend, we’ve had a 21st birthday, we’ve had groups of people going for crazy nights out at Beaver Works, we have people coming for shows, we had a group of people who were just meeting friends and going shopping.”

Artist Alison Smith worked with Shakespeare Primary School in Leeds to design a room based on play and primary colours, incorporating children’s games, called Ziggy Wingle (the pupils also got to choose the name).

Belgian-French duo Mary and Jiem created It’s Up To You, a room inspired by West Yorkshire’s history of protest, paying tribute to radical ideas and movements such as the United Black Youth League, also known as the Bradford 12.

In the Common(ing), designed by Newcastle’s Sarah Li, Edwin Li and Lady Kitt, guests can take blank tapes from the drawers to record their own travel story for others, or play on a bespoke music box. Elsewhere, photographer Mandy Barker has explored marine pollution and while laying in bed in the Ocean Galaxy private double room, guests can gaze up at the 769 footballs found around the world, made to look like outer space.

The Precious Collective came up with The Outside Inn, a space packed with off-beat personality described as “a room full of trompe l’oeil furniture through the lens of Dr Seuss”.

Jesse Paul Wright’s The Wooly Ewe is a celebration of sheep and Yorkshire’s textile heritage. The room includes 380 woollen tiles, made from garments found on local streets, woven to the ceiling. Caraboo Projects created Tall Tales and Eel Scales, a room exploring mythical travellers, sea creatures and folklore, examining themes of ecology and “a vanishing hidden world”.

ViDa, created The Rainbow Lodge using greenery, reclaimed wood and natural materials, inspired by their nomadic lifestyle.

Malaysian-British DJ Sayang’s Rooting is a private twin room designed for people with disabilities or anyone who might benefit from an audio, visual and multi-sensory experience, where light and sound is operated using remote control.

On the top level, Snowstorm by Sheffield’s Nelson and Woodward is inspired by a remarkable collection of snowglobes from around the world which simultaneously celebrates the joy of travel but asks questions about mass production.

Outside, local landscaper Matilya Njau has designed Green Fingers, a garden aimed at reducing the venue’s carbon footprint and offers a contrast to the surrounding urban environment.

For more information visit: https://arthostel.org.uk/