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Lane Shipsey
Lane Shipsey works as a photographer, artist, editor and writer. Hard Shoulder, Motorway City is her second solo exhibition of art photography. She has also contributed art and photography to many group shows which took place in Ireland, the UK and elsewhere. When possible, Lane also works as an independent filmmaker
The Landscape Cut
The starting point for this exhibition is a response to the previous mission statement of Leeds City Council, ‘Motorway City of the Seventies’, because it’s a series of works made in the neighbourhoods where that 1970s policy had a critical environmental impact. What happened suggests those in charge in the early 1970s favoured cars over people, roads over homes. Was it the influence of the recent arrival, near south Leeds, of the M1 motorway from London. Or was a local mayor a Leeds United fan wanting a high-speed drive to Elland Road? At any rate, motorways pushed through the southern edges of the city until the council ran out of money, energy or land. [See further info opening leaflet 1972? Poss print this off as an exhibit, to go with Bruce’s Tie Pin?]
Nearly 55 years on, enthusiasm for motors still runs high in Beeston and Hunslet, an area that prides itself on a tradition of engineering dating back to the Industrial Revolution. Many car-related businesses in Leeds are based here today: MOT garages, shops, tyre-sellers, used car re-sellers and so on.
The proliferation of physical barriers formed by slip roads and link roads placed neighbourhoods like Beeston and Holbeck apart from the city. Yet despite this or perhaps even because of this separation, Dewsbury Road remains a vibrant neighbourhood, constantly adapting to take account of new residents, fashions and trends. Many of the people I met and photographed here get about on foot, or use cycles and scooters; a much change local planning policy of active travel helps encourage this.
Walking along Dewsbury Road, it is possible to count almost as many hair salons and barber shops as car shops. Next to the car wash, a focal point I was drawn to is the old Crescent picture house, which cleverly used the natural fall of the road to build the tiering in its single theatre. The Crescent cinema opened in 1921 and screened its final film in 1968. Since then ‘the Crescent’ has racked up a number of past lives, and now seems poised for transition to some unspecified new incarnation. The hope is that the new incarnation of the Crescent will be something that makes a positive contribution to the local community, as did the 1000+ seater cinema back in the day.
Exhibition:
Hard Shoulder MOTORWAY CITY by Lane Shipsey at BasementArtsProject gallery, South Leeds, 19 May to 22 June 2026 BasementArtsProject.com.
