We’re proud to unveil the Leeds International African Arts Festival 2025 — a dynamic celebration of identity, heritage, and creativity rooted in the African diaspora.
We ask the questions that shape us — through music, art, fashion, and storytelling. Join us for the answers!
With special guests. Expect powerful performances and an exclusive preview of our 2025 programme.
RSVP by reserving your free ticket, see Tickets below.
Nuclear weapons could destroy us all, right now – so why aren’t we talking about them?
Sometimes the threat slides into view – Russia invades Ukraine – but that doesn’t make the weapons more dangerous. They’re always dangerous. And one day, deliberately or accidentally, they’ll be used again.
From the team that created the award-winning Status and Confirmation, comes a show about a new nuclear weapons treaty – one that’s trying to give the power to eliminate nuclear weapons to the states, and people, who don’t possess them.
A panel debate to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week.
In response to the number of working-age adults unable to work due to poor mental health, health secretary Wes Streeting told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that mental-health conditions are being ‘overdiagnosed’ - a claim backed up by more than four in five GPs who believe that the ups and downs of normal life are being wrongly redefined as mental disorders.
Get to know our collections up close as we tell you stories about a selection of objects in our ever-popular Tuesday Treasure lunchtime drop-in.
Renowned novelist Caryl Phillips spent his childhood in Leeds and remains a committed Leeds United fan. While known around the world for his powerful fiction, he’s also frequently written about being a football fan, including the complexities of being a Black fan of Leeds United in the 1960s and 70s.
As part of the Voice of the Fans exhibition, in conversation with Professor Andrew Warnes, Phillips discusses his experience as a fan, of writing about football and what Leeds United means to the city he grew up in.
Claire Warwick and John Boocock discuss the origins and history of the Unofficial Leeds United Email List and football supporters in Cyberspace. The ‘Leeds List’ claims to be the oldest surviving football supporters’ email list in the UK.
Join Mick Ward from Marching Out Together, local historian Andrea Hetherington, and former Leeds Other Paper journalist Dr Tony Harcup for a discussion about the fascinating history of independent media in Leeds since the 1970s - and particularly its links with football fan culture.
Inspired by the current British Library and Leeds Libraries exhibition, Voice of the Fans, this panel event features scholars whose research interests focus on issues in football fan culture.
Participants include Professor Richard Haynes, author of The Football Imagination: The Rise of Football Fanzine Culture, together with current PhD students Cameron Huggett (British Library/Teesside University) and Aurélien Gerard (Sorbonne University).
Fan-led media occupies a unique space in the world of football, from a handful of photocopied fanzines sold outside football grounds in the ‘70s, to the global reach of today’s multimedia platforms. Join the British Library and Leeds Libraries to explore fan-driven publishing in the present moment, including its role in the wider media landscape, what it offers audiences, why it’s important and how it has endured despite changes in the globalised game.
It’s the Science of Gin, as Quantum Sauce marks World Gin Day 2025!
Savour the Flavours of gin-based science with talks from three real-life researchers!
Dr Jen Wallis - Sozzled Cities and Secret Tipplers: Women Drinkers in Myth and Reality
Dr Pete Ianetta - Rebellious Spirit: the first climate positive gin, and the power of peas!
Dr Ruaraidh MacIntosh - The Chemistry of Gin (not as dry as it sounds!)
Gins, Grins and Mind Expansion at Farsley’s Old Woollen, 11th June!