Leeds 78

Expanded cinema performance by oko (Joanna Byrne and Mark Byrne) using 16mm film and 35mm slides (2012).

This performance appropriates and re-works Leeds 78 (1972), a film promoting Leeds’ bid for the Commonwealth Games in 1978. The film exists as a relic from another age: there is next to no documentation or discussion of it. This is perhaps unsurprising, as Leeds was unsuccessful in the bid.

The film contains some beautiful shots of Leeds International Pool (now demolished) and Leeds Kirkgate Market (which is currently undergoing massive redevelopment). There is also a section devoted to the construction of a Commonwealth Olympic Village, shown as an architectural model, which was never built.

Repeated viewings of the film led to reflection upon the ways in which Leeds is seen from the outside, and from the inside-out, about how cities evolve and change, about Leeds’ continuing struggle for a sense of identity, about what is lost to history, and what is found, or discovered, or re-discovered.

The stories that OKO uncovered through research resulted in the compilation of a critical, playful slide commentary that accompanies the film. The commentary was inspired in part by Anthony McCall & Andrew Tyndall’s Argument (1978) and consists of 78 35mm slides, projected alongside the film.

oko (2010-2013) was an artistic collaboration between Joanna Byrne and Mark Byrne.

EXHIBITION

2012: M1 < Dark Heart (programmed by Derek Horton & Chris Bloor), Glamourie, Project Space Leeds.