I’m Carnival Happy - exhibitions, newspaper (edition: 2000) and outdoor installations
- Submitting institution
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Leeds Beckett University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 13
- Type
- M - Exhibition
- Venue(s)
- Leeds Central Library
- Open access status
- -
- Month of first exhibition
- August
- Year of first exhibition
- 2017
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Lizzie Coombes’ contribution to I’m Carnival Happy used the portable portrait studio as a social engagement tool, marking Leeds Carnival’s 50th anniversary. Drawing on 30 years’ experience as an artist-photographer, her ongoing interest in the role of community projects here entails subjecting all 647 subjects to the same sartorial constraint: a specially commissioned carnival headpiece.
The subject’s ‘default’ character melts under the pressure of the ostentatious headgear: they laugh, look quizzical, embarrassed, trying (and failing) to keep a straight face. Though the portraits were accessible for participants to download, the publication shows them in a grid, allowing us to compare them quickly and note how there is no ‘natural’ expression to accommodate Coombes’ imposition of this singular accessory, which is usually seen only from a distance. This closing down of distance is key to the social aspect of the project.
A Leeds Inspired commission funded by Leeds City Council, the portraits appeared in a free newspaper (2000 printed, including all portraits); on bus shelter hoardings; as an installation outside the Reginald Centre (Chapeltown); in an exhibition at Leeds Central Library; on BBC Look North; and on the carnival websites. Participant Maria Spadafora described the work as a ‘very welcoming and fun experience’ while Dr. Haynes Collins, Lecturer in Intercultural Studies, said the portraits were ‘perfect example of transcultural flow’ in a Leeds University video for the I’m Carnival Happy exhibition Room 700.
Jane Earnshaw, principal arts officer for Leeds Inspired, sees Coombes’ portraits as part of the plan ‘to spread the word [of the carnival] among Leeds residents’, but their significance lies in Coombes’ blurring of the boundary between the photograph as a promotional vehicle and as a performance document as she travelled to 15 locations across Leeds, including a swimming pool, shopping centres and an older people’s lunch club.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
