Location
University of Leeds, Special Collections, Brotherton Library

Join us for an afternoon exploring the research potential of the ‘Leeds Animation Workshop Archive’
Leeds Animation Workshop is a women’s collective set up in 1978 to produce and distribute animated films on social, health and educational issues. The Workshop archive is the only known complete archive of a collective independent filmmaking organisation and was donated to Special Collections at the University of Leeds.
The collection will be of interest to researchers in a variety of fields, including alternative film and animation, health humanities and feminist activism.
This event will give attendees the opportunity to explore materials from the archive and hear from researchers who have previously engaged with the collection.
When: Tuesday 19 September at 2-4pm
Where: Special Collections room, Brotherton Library (University of Leeds)
Join us at the mid-point of the Wellcome Trust-funded cataloguing project to explore some of the cataloguing finds, including:
Artwork and animation materials: see the nuts and bolts of filmmaking and the evolution of animation practices at the Workshop.
Organisational documents showing the development, operation and survival of the Workshop as a grassroots feminist filmmaking collective over time.
Distribution and publication files show the Workshop as both hyperlocal and international, part of networks of individuals and organisations involved in radical filmmaking and distribution.
Film files provide fascinating background to the Workshop’s films which cover a vast range of subjects, from sexual harassment to the threat of nuclear proliferation, to dealing with family bereavement and coming out at work.
Unmade films include project plans for films which the Workshop wasn’t able to develop and show tantalising glimpses of films which might have been made.
How to sign up
In person https://bit.ly/3OTN6TQ
Online https://bit.ly/45pA0Dm
Sarah Prescott
Literary Archivist | Special Collections & Galleries
Leeds University Library
https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1500/special_collections
@LULGalleries
Dr Melanie Bell
Professor of Film History
School of Media and Communication
University of Leeds, LS2 9JT
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS)
Image: Wiki Commons