Programme

Create Leicester

Jiten Anand CEO of award winning cultural producers Inspirate will chair a discussion looking at the value and potency of working with designers when producing cultural festivals.  Presentations and discussion from

• Sophie Akbar (Without Walls, Development Producer),
• Tom Cleaver (Mr Cleavers Monsters, Puppet Master) 
• Chirag Lukha (Martial Artist & Dance Choreographer). 

The discussion will focus on Inspirate’s production for Leicester Diwali festival – the largest celebration of Diwali outside of India.

Gods and Demons from ancient South Asian tales will be brought to life in a visual spectacle of giant puppetry, adventure and surprise for Diwali Lights Switch On. Join the artists, producers and funders behind this epic production, where they will explore the intricate symbiotic synergy between Design, Dance and Martial Arts. The UK outdoor arts scene is changing and Inspirate are paving the way for new contemporary South Asian culture, starting with their UK touring production of Ancient Giants, supported by Without Walls.

If Design Innovation is a process that meets peoples need are we all on the same page this presentation and debate from Design Leicester asks.  Our session brings together academics, creatives, businesses, innovators and producers to consider what great design and innovation looks like and then consider how might we really build better.  Do we agree what challenges we face, do the powers that be grasp how the design community can step up and does the design community itself drive itself forward to offer possibilities.

With representatives from DMU’s design unit, the Arts AI Festival, Knowledge transfer partnerships and the design community itself the sessions offers the opportunity to start grasp what should be done and what can be done

Design Season 2021 saw the commencement of the ”ALL IN” group. Initiated by Bill Haley of award winning Haley Sharpe Design and drawing on design work for cultural institutions the world over, this group has spent the year committed to a programme of consultation and testing of ideas designed to define, create and advocate for inclusivity in design

Twelve months on from Design Season 2021 Bill and the ALL IN gropup will detail their works to date and how the ALL-IN group been involved with offering accessibility and access advice using the ALL-IN inclusive process when designing for accessibility in LEICESTER. Oraghnisations to date include Attenborough Centre, Curve, the Phoenix, LCB, Graffwerks and the Journeys Festival with Art Reach. Come and see what we have done in 12 months.  Find out

Who we are

Hear about our process ALL IN – ACCESS-ABILITY and our mission to promote barrier removal

Who is included in ALL IN and how you can get involved

Design Season presents – The Textiles Takeover – A taster event for next year’s first ever @LeicesterTextilesFestival‘  

Leicester textile artists present a day of fun engaging textile activity aimed at promoting textile design and the circular economy.  Hosted at LCB Depot the day comprises a range of sessions with Gray’s coffee shop & kitchen open all day.  Sessions include

Textile Swap

Got any fabric, balls of yarn, thread, haberdashery, patterns or other textile related craft items, kits or books that you no longer use? Bring items to swap and get tickets to exchange for something different! You can hand in items on the day or drop them off beforehand on the 11th

Make Do & Mend

Drop in with items that need mending or upcycling for advice and tips

Skill Swap 

Drop-in sessions to learn new textiles skills including how to use a sewing machine, simple embroidery, and knitting and crochet. Fun Ideas Hub for using scraps of fabric, repurposing old textiles and creating Halloween outfits from items you might already have at home.

Clothes Swap 

Do you want to refresh/re-energise your wardrobe for free? Tired of looking at clothes you never wear? Want to make more sustainable choices in what you wear? The Autumn clothes swop event is just what you need….and it needs you Simply bring up to 10 items (clothes, shoes, accessories) and get swapping!

For every item you bring – you get to take home something new to you – how good is that?? All items should be clean, size labelled if needed and in good wearable condition. Local stylists, including @cathirae will be offering FREE styling advice on the day to help you get the most from your new wardrobe!

Having retraced a series of plaques in the city centre, marked for the 1984 LRSA Trail, which had until that point been a complete mystery to us! Some serious investigation later and we have uncovered a map of the 1984 trail highlighting the most important public spaces and vistas in the city.

Local architects David Hickman and Adam Smith will take the lead of this tour, focusing on areas, buildings and views at the established LRSA Trail stations around the Cathedral Quarter. Join our architects and see this part of the city in a whole new light!

Leading independent creative AI curator and researcher, Luba Elliott will discuss some of the most contemporary applications of creative AI today.

Luba will present the state of the art in creative AI. The past few years have seen the development of AI art as a trend. From its beginnings with DeepDream and style transfer to GANs and CLIP, AI art has long moved beyond the world of research and academia to find itself straddling the worlds of media and contemporary art and now NFTs. The contemporary art world’s fascination with the social impact of facial recognition, recommendation systems and deep fakes has encouraged artists to explore AI critically as subject matter, while NFTs have shifted the focus back to aesthetics. This talk will give an overview of how artists and technologists are using and thinking about machine learning, its creative potential and societal impact.

You can also find this event on the British Science Festival website HERE

About Luba Elliott

Luba Elliott is a curator, producer and researcher specialising in artificial intelligence in the creative industries.  She is currently working to educate and engage the broader public about the latest developments in creative AI through talks, exhibitions and tech demonstrations at venues across the art, business and technology spectrum including The Photographers’ Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, ZKM Karlsruhe, Impakt Festival, The Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, CogX, NeurIPS and ICCV.

Luba is a partner of Leicester’s Art AI Festival, working as the Festival’s curator, and other recent projects include the online gallery aiartonline.com and NeurIPS Machine Learning for Creativity and Design Workshop. She is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the UCL Centre for Artificial Intelligence. Prior to that, she worked in start-ups, including the art collector database Larry’s List. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Modern Languages at the University of Cambridge and has a certificate in Design Thinking from the Hasso-Plattner-Institute D-school in Potsdam.

Online Luba can be found sharing AI updates on twitter, curating a Creative AI newsletter and art impressions on instagram.

Working lunch: Introducing food’s urban graphic heritage – Public session, led by Robert Harland. At this session we invite participants to bring and eat a lunch that holds meaning for them as a way to reflect on their heritage, family and lived experience. This could include places to eat, food from other countries etc

Leicester Urban Observatory is a collaboration between urban practitioners at Leicester City Council and academics at three local universities: De Montfort University, University of Leicester, and Loughborough University. It aims to establish and develop a combined centre of excellence in urban studies and planning for Leicester.

For Design Season the UO has developed ‘Urbanism’ a day where the UOP takes over at LCB Depot to present a range of works and ideas relating to the urban environment and the way we live and co-exist.

Follow the UO at Twitter @LeicsObs

Urban research across the region – Public session, led by Stefano De Sabbata and Jamileh Manoochehri

Leicester Urban Observatory is a collaboration between urban practitioners at Leicester City Council and academics at three local universities: De Montfort University, University of Leicester, and Loughborough University. It aims to establish and develop a combined centre of excellence in urban studies and planning for Leicester.

For Design Season the UO has developed ‘Urbanism’ a day where the UOP takes over at LCB Depot to present a range of works and ideas relating to the urban environment and the way we live and co-exist.

Follow the UO at Twitter @LeicsObs

Love Architecture is the annual series created by the RLSA and RIBA partnership for the region.  Taking place during LCB’s October Architecture month Leicester Design Season is this year proud to present the Love Architecture – Evening Lecture with Evans Vettori

http://www.evansvettori.co.uk/