Panel Discussion: David Steans, Lauren Velvick and Marianna Tsionki

Join us for an opportunity to visit our exhibition David Steans: Paperhouse and learn more about the ideas and concepts driving the work on display. David Steans will be in conversation with theorist and curator Marianna Tsionki and writer and curator Lauren Velvick.

David Steans is an artist and writer based in Leeds, UK. Working in text, collage, moving image and installation, he creates a sense of strangeness in technologies and institutions of cultural production. Notable projects include Poorly Moon, commissioned by Yorkshire Contemporary (2026), Mummy Hood Nesting Forest (2022), commissioned by Primary, and Puppy the Goblin, screened at Tate Britain in 2022. He has written erotic Deftones fan-fiction for Vice Magazine (2025), legend-tripped a cursed tv show for ‘Documents of Contemporary Art: Magic’ (2021), and published a collection of experimental horror stories, now held in Tate Library (From the Lounge, 2018).

Lauren Velvick is an arts worker based in the North of England, she is currently Artist Development Programme Manager at HOME art centre, Manchester and is Managing Editor of Corridor8, the journal of contemporary art and writing based in the North and Midlands of England. Lauren is a contributor to Art Monthly and an occasional organiser of independent curatorial projects. Her practice is predicated on the temporary contracts that have characterised her career, intentionally seeking out the particular creative communities and practices that exist in places that may not be typically considered as cultural centres.

Marianna Tsionki is a curator and theorist whose research explores the intersections of contemporary art, ecology and the curatorial as a site of critical inquiry. She is Associate Professor and University Curator at Leeds Arts University, overseeing Curatorial Programmes, Collections and Archives, and Library Operations. Her work examines post-industrial visualities and the relationships between resource extraction, environmental politics and ecological knowledge, drawing on decolonial, ecofeminist and hydrofeminist perspectives. She is co-editor of We Live Like Trees Inside the Footsteps of Our Ancestors (K. Verlag, 2026) and the forthcoming Ecofeminism and Art Today: Situated Knowledge in Times of Planetary Crisis (Routledge, 2027). She is a member of the Anthropocene Commonsassociation.

Please note: Bags may be checked on arrival so allow extra time for security checks. If possible, please leave large bags and rucksacks at home as we do not have the facilities to store these, or any other items of personal property. We reserve the right to not allow any bag, parcel or other item to be brought into the building.

If you’d like to speak to a team member about any access or additional needs, please email curatorial@leeds-art.ac.uk or telephone 0113 202 8000.

Image: David Steans, Paperhouse, 24 September 2026 - 23 January 2027, Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds Arts University, Installation view. Photo: Jules Lister