How the work done during LEEDS 2023 is not finished yet - Kully Thiarai

‘Well, why can’t you do more drawing now?’ I asked. ‘Crayons’ she said. ‘I don’t have any crayons at home. I want crayons so I can do drawing at home.’

In a city blessed with the most extraordinary cultural organisations - opera, ballet, theatre, museums, galleries - a genuine hope from this child was to have the most basic of artistic tools in her home.

That hope stayed with me all through 2023. She reminded me of myself when I was young with little access to things that encouraged artistic expression.

Through the difficult decisions and long days of delivering a meaningful, year-long cultural programme I have remembered that girl. And her hope for crayons.

It has been a daily reminder of my responsibility.

A responsibility to both dream big, create surprise and wonder, and act at the most hyperlocal level, to put crayons in the hands of as many people as possible.

Creativity is in all of us, yet sometimes we need help to rewild our imaginations. As a Year of Culture we had greater responsibilities than just crayons for everyone, a responsibility to public gestures.

Formal initiatives designed to encourage societal change are important. They are the mechanism by which the difficult and slow and necessary change in the world is done. But stories - public gestures - are the ways we have the courage to make the change in the first place.

Just over a year ago, the importance of gesture was central to our opening event; ‘The Awakening’, a stadium scale ceremony featuring the best of Leeds’ performance talent. You could only get a ticket by submitting a piece of art to the ticket ballot. Many thought such a risk foolish. In the end thousands submitted all sorts of art to secure their ticket to see Corinne Bailey Rae, hundreds of volunteers and Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage, amongst many others. In a city that has often lacked cultural confidence the gesture of thousands submitting their work felt profound. A sign of what a Year of Culture could be and do, developing cultural capital in as many people as possible.

The launch of ‘Hibiscus Rising’ in November 2023, a new public artwork by Yinka Shonibare, was another powerful public gesture. Commemorating the life of David Oluwale, the almost 10 metre African flower breaking through the concrete rises up to the sky full of joyful playfulness. Just a few metres from where David was chased to his death by two policemen. There is palpable hope in that sculpture. A permanent public gesture of how the whole city had learnt and changed since those awful events.

Raymond Williams said, “To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.” And it is that radical idea to which we have clung in a time of challenges.

The age does its best to convince us that we cannot make a difference but in so many of the projects delivered during LEEDS 2023 I have seen evidence of the opposite. Whether it was the children of Holbeck performing their opera on national radio and festival stages, or the work of our Neighbourhood Hosts in all 33 wards of Leeds, or the opportunity to gaze into the universe on a mobile observatory. Time and time again I have seen the confidence, pride and joy culture can bring.

At a time when public spending is under huge pressure, driven by national government, with tough decisions facing our local government leaders, it would be easy to give in to despair and not to invest, either financially or emotionally, in the cultural health of a city.

But the stories we tell to and about ourselves can be the dares we make about a better future.

This understanding was at the heart of our closing ceremony, ‘The Gifting’. Just as ‘Hibiscus Rising’ is a reminder of the parts of our past we never want to repeat, ‘The Gifting’ was a series of promises to ourselves for the coming years. Big heroic myths based on what the city had done in 2023 with the hope - that radical hope again that we all might build on what we’ve collectively achieved together and continue expressing our creativity in 2024, and beyond.

Because the work is not finished. Not even close. It has been my privilege to lead a year of culture in Leeds. And whilst I acknowledge there are still kids without crayons, artists not yet supported, audiences untouched, stories untold, hopes not yet possible, I know that we did all that we could, gave our all and gave it for every moment of the year. I cannot wait to see what this brilliant city and region does next.

Kully Thiarai is creative director and chief executive of LEEDS 2023.