Pop-up film exhibition at Leeds Beckett University to showcase Leeds' cinematic heritage

This opening exhibition has been created in collaboration with Leeds Industrial Museum, the Leeds Library, Fleischer Studios, and the National Science and Media Museum Bradford. This unique exhibition offers a rare glimpse into early cinema history.

It features a replica of the Louis Le Prince single-lens camera, a pioneering invention by one of Leeds' film pioneers. Visitors can also view a stereoscope with slides, books, papers and ephemera from the Stephen Herbert Archive.

The Stephen Herbert Archive is a collection of books, research papers and artefacts connected to the early history of motion pictures held by the Leeds School of Arts at Leeds Beckett. The archive contains a wide range of items including an original Talbotype, an original Eadweard Muybridge stereoscopic photograph, unpublished manuscripts and around 500 books on all aspects of film and television history. This material will be used to inform exciting new projects throughout the coming years on everything from animation to Leeds' own film pioneers, Louis Le Prince and Wordsworth Donisthorpe.

Professor Robert Shail, Director of Research at Leeds School of Arts, said: "We're delighted to have launched the Early Cinema Research Group at Leeds Beckett and to be hosting this exhibition. This internationally significant archive will mark the beginning of exciting events celebrating Leeds as the place where the history of cinema began."

Irfan Shah, Film Historian and Leeds based writer, said: "Our aim is to establish a genuinely world-class research centre here in Leeds. Not only will we be helping to tell the wider story of film, but we'll also be uncovering the part that Leeds played in it all."

The exhibition is free to visit and open to the public from Tuesday 17 December 2024 to Tuesday 7 January 2025 at White Column Gallery, Broadcasting Place B, Woodhouse Lane and Platform, Upper Ground, Leeds Arts Building, Portland Way.