One of the principle protagonists of the proposed project is shaping up to be Leeds watercourses themselves – the confluence of river and canal that collide in the city’s dark heart but also propel the imagination outwards.   Here is a connection, like the footprint of an ancient trade route, westwards through Liverpool to the Americas, eastwards through Hull to the rest of Europe and beyond.
 
Patrick Nuttgens called Leeds the “the Back-to-Front, Inside-Out, Upside-Down-City” and for years the city has turned in back on it waterways. As it turns to face canal and river again through regeneration, new build and the opening up of the waterside, it is vital to explore these watercourses  imaginatively, to ‘rename’  and reconfigure them in the collective psyche . This is one aspect of Canvas and the Quays address and it is also a feature of a newly commissioned film by Corinne Silva currently showing at Leeds Art Gallery. Corinne, born in Leeds and perhaps known to many through her Rosin Born project, exploring the city’s Irish community, makes the waterways a leading protagonist in her film ‘Wandering Abroad.’ She takes as her starting point the life and death of David Oluwale, whose body was pulled out of the River Aire in 1969, but the film is also an elegy to the experience of the many economic and political migrants who have come to Leeds over the years and continue to do so.
 
David Oluwale came to England by water from Nigeria in 1949 with dreams of studying to be an engineer.  Arriving in Hull, he was sentenced as a stowaway to a short term in Armley Gaol, Leeds.  Twenty years later he was found drowned in the Aire at Knostrop.  Subsequently two police officers were found guilty of assault in a notorious case which revealed how they had hounded Oluwale, over several years, while he was homeless on the streets of the city. 
 
'Wandering Abroad' was shot on digital film, and has a soundtrack of Caribbean, West African and British music from the period, and interviews with Gabriel Adams, Arthur France MBE and Abiye Hector Goma telling of their own migration to Leeds and the impact Oluwale’s death had on their experience of living in the city.  The film traces Oluwale’s final journey down the river, but also narrates a journey through the city, a journey through time, resonant with the change and transition brought about by the urban development common to many northern post-industrial cities. 
  
Presented as an installation in one of the Gallery spaces it continues showing until 31 January and then from 1 February it will be presented as part of a continuing programme alongside ‘Wintereisse‘ a commission by the Gallery with Opera North from Mariele Neudecker and appropriately also a meditation on journeys north. 
 
Nigel Walsh, Curator of Contemporary Art, Leeds Art Gallery