A great deal has happened in my life since moving from London to Bradford. A multitude of creative opportunities have opened up for me – unexpectedly, almost beyond my wildest dreams. Like any gift, they have been accepted gratefully and with zeal. These opportunities include making a National Lottery funded documentary ‘Seeing with Imagination’, an ode to Bradford’s resilient Windrush Generation. I was also honoured to be invited to sing backing vocals on Bradford’s Sinead Campbell’s newest EP, Sankofa. I’ve written a play called Ezekiel: The Haunting of Freedom’s Song, which was performed in St. George’s Hall, Bradford, as part of a Shakespeare Nation event and will be performed in 2026 at Chapel FM in Leeds. Most recently, I’ve been chosen by South Square Centre and Corridor8 to conjure up some words for OUR TURN, described as the first visual arts festival to be held in Bradford. I feel as though Bradford’s warm, welcoming arts communities, its spaces old and new, and its recent position in the eye of a cultural storm – as UK City of Culture 2025 – have opened up a flow of creativity that I wasn’t aware I had.
Bradford 2025 was advertised as, ‘A celebration of Bradford city and district, taking place across its city, towns, villages and greenspaces’ and showcasing ‘the rich history of the area and spotlight[ing] its dynamic contemporary culture in all forms’. This was to be a dazzling array of experiences that would shine a national and – hopefully – international light on the seventh largest city in the UK by population. The OUR TURN Festival is the artist-led festival within a festival, designed by and for Bradford-based artists, organised by South Square Centre in collaboration with BD2025, Bradford Producing Hub and Yorkshire Contemporary, with ‘an exciting programme of events, exhibitions, workshops, learning opportunities and more’.
To my thinking, the name ‘OUR TURN’ gives me an impression of something previously waiting in the shadows now lurching forward to reveal a blinding colourful display – a catalyst for a life-changing metamorphosis. It is also a clever play on the ‘Turner Prize’, this year held at Cartwright Hall in Lister Park. Cartwright Hall is a grand Baroque Revival building that has housed art collections since 1904. Its very architecture speaks of civic pride and ambition, with those imposing stone walls having witnessed over a century of Bradford’s creative expression. To have the Turner Prize held here felt like a recognition that Bradford has always belonged in conversations about contemporary art.
The OUR TURN moniker also brings me to thoughts about voice and visibility. External factors can cause you to have to bend from saying what you want to truly say or doing what you truly want to do. It can feel hellish to be trapped in a silent scream. From an outside perspective, this can apply to Bradford’s deindustrialised past, where the political framework of the 1980s drip-fed the city – along with much of the North – next to nothing, which meant it must have felt like it was never their turn. Their raging shouts were turned silent through a clever mix of legislation and ideology. Somehow, it has withstood this ill treatment and now has a chance to really shine. It’s ‘OUR TURN’ once again, and I feel as though Bradford has set something free in me.
The first OUR TURN event I visited was the Practice Bradford exhibition at Loading Bay in the city centre, on from September 18th to October 19th. I was overwhelmed by its simplicity and its poignancy. The venue itself – a temporary cultural space carved out of what was once an industrial area – felt symbolic of Bradford’s recent transformation. Here, in this in-between place, art was being made and shown with urgency and authenticity.
Joanna Byrne’s installation included stone paving slabs propped against a wall. Images of closely filmed flora moving effortlessly in the wind were projected onto their surfaces as well as onto a large screen at the end of the room, accompanied by the sound of bird calls. The absurdity of modern-day thinking was laid bare for me. We sacrifice the beautiful without blinking twice. A short description of her work highlighted the fact that she adopts themes of rewilding, ecological resilience, urban memory and examining interstitial spaces. Challenging long-taught misconceptions about the misuse of our planet and educating the onlooker about how to care for our local and global environments appears to be part of her goal.
I was fortunate to get more insight directly from her. She mentioned that she uses analogue techniques when filming and photographing spaces and subjects to promote a unique aesthetic and slow down the process of creativity. An analogue photographer or filmmaker must be highly selective and have a keen eye, perhaps following an intentional narrative, because there are only a limited number of exposures to create with. For Byrne, the developer’s room is an opportunity to ponder her surroundings, to keenly examine the minutiae of interaction, interchangeability, growth and decay.
I immediately recognised OUR TURN as creating a slow burn, where patience will be needed in order to claim clarity as to what its function, meaning and impact will be. Joanna Byrne’s art is deeply connected to Bradford, and here that art was at the city’s centre – a centre which is, in the eyes of myself and many others, beautifully regenerated. The traffic has been reduced, helping to promote a pedestrianised town centre. Human beings can enjoy newly planted greenery, which shrouds Bradford’s proud Victorian architecture. Joanna’s art is complimenting this joyous uprising. Is it life imitating art or the other way around? In truth, a cascading action is happening, which will benefit us all. It is perhaps mirrored in one of Joanna’s core beliefs – in the positive effects of ‘film-medicine’, which entails ‘exploring the transformational and therapeutic potential of experimental participatory practices in filmmaking to connect us to each other and (our) planet Earth.’
Also at the Practice Bradford exhibition, I encountered the work of Atiyya Mirza, who as part of her installation had created two life-sized ragdolls made of varied and colourful fabric. She explained that they represented a sometimes restrictive tradition, one that pushes domestic expectation and emotional constraint as part of a woman’s rite of passage. Smashed plates lying round about held fragmented phrases that tied women to these religious notions.
The dolls lay side by side, domestic work fatigue causing them to lie in a flat position. Propped beside each other, with smiling faces, sisterly solidarity energised them, thus acting against this tiredness. The cracked and smashed porcelain lay at their feet, showing a revolutionary action following stymied thought, long held in. Atiyya told me she wanted to challenge some ideas and uphold others that were dear to her; she wanted to form an internal revolution, creating choice and establishing a feeling of being heard. She and her message resonated with me immediately. Her work was agitating, playing devil’s advocate to rouse a change in hearts and minds. It was constructed in an explicitly traditional form but with an attached fearlessness.
I encountered similar ideas when I visited Loading Bay again a few months later for the Bradford Art Show. This was a large group show containing work in a wide variety of media. As curator Dr Kerry Harker said, ‘This is emphatically not a best of Bradford exhibition. It is a snapshot in time of exciting and diverse work…. The works we have selected speak to the theme OUR PLACE [and] the diasporic diversity of contemporary life across Bradford District.’ Dr Harker’s words led me to reflect that agreed ways of behaving, accepting, denying and rejecting have to have foundations in external stimuli to persuade the conversations to become explicit. Put more simply, it’s ultimately people that decide what a norm is and what is valuable. Art’s various shapes and forms can be the catalyst for this agreement.
Bradford Art Show immersed viewers in a striking blend of the natural and the human-made, from hypnotic video installations of swirling river currents to a poignant portrait of a tattooed, industrial-era man, etched with resignation. Subdued, Rothko-inspired mosques in warm hues contrasted with dreamlike watercolours of hazy moors. Each piece contributed to a deeply evocative narrative of place and memory. Art, in all its forms, is that totemic focus that helps the sacred to become distinguished from the profane. The idea links a recognition of social cohesion through experienced, understood and then agreed patterns of thought, practice, tradition and action.
Earlier in the year I had seen Joshua Hart’s The Pursuit for the Perfect Game. This photography exhibition at Go Bowling in Shipley seemed small and scant, and on the surface uninspiring, but with deeper reflection, the sense of a community gathering for the release of pent-up anxiety, pondering a lack of investment and fostering togetherness, was so important. The bowling alley as a site of working-class leisure and connection became, through Hart’s lens, something almost sacred. A space where community was maintained even as so much else was stripped away.
As I walked around the Bradford Art Show, I noticed a sign that said, ‘A LAND OF AUSTERITY WITH HOPE FOR PROSPERITY’, a work by Kennedy Drake. Her work is ‘created to mark the history of working-class stories of pride, unity and strength’. Inspired by Walter Crane’s ‘A Garland for May Day’, Drake’s slogan takes the form of a trade union banner, honouring the rich history of the Bradford district. In my eyes, the banner supported hope, and a movement away from ill treatment at the hands of central government. Stories told and shown, discussed and remembered help to release the unconscious behind the conscious. A freedom seldom allowed in economic turmoil and mayhem. This internal locus of control and self-validation might speak to young Bradfordians especially.
I was delighted to see in the pamphlet that many of the pieces could be purchased and was even more elated to know many had already been sold. What really captured me was an oil painting by Jake Attree. ‘Landscape with Water and Headlands’ showed trees that were tall and ghostly. Held in a large frame, they looked proud of their long past and their continued future. Those trees seemed to embody something essential about Bradford itself, weathered by time, perhaps scarred, yet still standing, still reaching upward. There was a dignity in their spectral forms, a refusal to be diminished. The river and headlands suggested journeys, arrivals, the meeting of land and possibility. I stood before it for some time, feeling the weight of what those trees had witnessed and what they would yet see.
On my way out I was asked by one of the gallery assistants which work was my favourite. I described the painting to her, at the time not knowing its title. She looked at me, held her breath, took out her phone and showed me her primary choice. It was the same as mine. We looked at each other, eye to eye. We smiled. I said, ‘You have good taste’. ‘We both do’, she replied jovially. That brief moment of connectivity meant everything. In that instant, art had done what it does best – created a bridge between strangers, a shared recognition of beauty that required little explanation.
A further joy at the exhibition was an apron filled with blue plaques. Each honoured person was a woman connected to Bradford who had accomplished something great and life-changing for many others. Malachi Whitaker, the Brontës, Julia Varley OBE, Florence Moser and Daphne Steele, to name but a few. The exhibit was called ‘Pinny Piece’ by Caro Blount-Shah and is a profound piece of history held in what might be defined by many as a constraining costume that symbolises a continued fight for freedom and choice. Seeing those names, women who had shaped literature, labour rights, education, social change, displayed on an apron was a brilliant provocation. What does it mean to wear your achievements on a garment associated with domestic servitude? How do we honour women’s contributions while acknowledging the structures that confined (and might continue to confine) them? The blue plaques, traditionally mounted on buildings to commemorate great men, here became soft, portable, domestic.
It made me think of my own journey as a creative Black British Caribbean man. How I carry my achievements and aspirations with me, sometimes hidden beneath the expectations others place upon me, sometimes displayed proudly despite those other people. Again, submerged feelings made explicit by observing and experiencing art. My final words in this article end with how I began. My own creative voice is to be allowed to be heard in a place that gives you time to develop. As a member of the Quality Avenue Choir, I will be performing a song and dance at the Brighter Still end-of-Bradford-2025 celebratory event in Myrtle Park, Bingley. The title ‘Brighter Still’ resonates deeply with me. It acknowledges that Bradford is already bright, already shining, and suggests that even more brilliance is to come. We are not starting from darkness, we are amplifying light that was always there. As I sat through rehearsals, the 200 people participating were across generations and cultures. Each happy to clap, smile, shake hands and cry tears. There were grandmothers standing beside teenagers, long time Bradfordians next to recent arrivals, all learning the same steps, singing the same words, building something together. The song we’re performing speaks of hope and community, of looking forward while honouring where we’ve been. ‘Power, we’re gonna rise up’ is the central anthemic line.
In observation and consideration of such cohesive action, the OUR TURN moniker is not mimicking anything. It is its own voice that is unashamedly asking for what it wants. It is declaring that Bradford deserves attention, resources, celebration – not as charity but as recognition of what has always been here. Our turn to shine is not about waiting for permission, it’s about stepping into the light we’ve earned through resilience, creativity and community. Bradford’s cultural renaissance is not a sudden transformation but an unveiling, a revelation of what those who live here have always known. And in this unveiling, I have found my own voice amplified, my own creativity unleashed, my own sense of belonging deepened. Bradford gave me permission to become, and in turn, I am witnessing Bradford give itself permission to claim its rightful place in the nation’s cultural consciousness. This is our turn and we are taking it.
Martin Scott is the recipient the OUR TURN Emerging Writer Bursary, in partnership with South Square Centre and Corridor8. Having worked as a teacher for twenty-four years, Martin has recently made the transition into creative work, from prose writing to music and film. His documentary Seeing with Imagination celebrates how the local Black Caribbean community has healed from trauma, and his play Ezekiel: The Haunting of Freedom’s Song is a tribute to that same resilience.
This piece is supported by South Square Centre, Thornton.
There are still a number of OUR TURN events and exhibitions running in January 2026. See below, or the OUR TURN website, for details.
EVENTS:
Let Me Help Film Preview, Wednesday 21 January, 18:00-19:00, Keighley Creative
Mona and the Moths Artist Walk, Friday 23 January, 16:30-17:00, meet at The Corn Dolly
Mona and the Moths Storytelling, Friday 23 January, 17:00-20:00, The Corn Dolly
EXHIBITIONS:
The Bradford Print Collection 2025, Various locations, on until Wed 28 Jan
Our Past, Present and Future, South Square Centre, on until Sun 1 Feb
‘But where are you REALLY from?’, Bradford Arts Centre, on until Wed 28 Jan
Bad & Beautiful, Salts Works, on until Fri 23 Jan
Living Wild, MAPA Cultural Arts Centre, on until Tue 27 Jan
Under the Light, Darley St Market, on until Sat 24 Jan
Chinese Whispers, Fourth Idea Studios, on until Fri 30 Jan
PARTNER EVENTS:
Hardy and Free, Kirkgate Shopping Centre, on until Sun 22 Feb
Past/Present: A 10 Year Anniversary Solo Retrospective Exhibition, Cat Scott MRSS Studio, on until Fri 23 Jan
Z Open Exhibition Art Work by Young Bradford Creatives, Bradford Industrial Museum, on until Sat 28 Mar
Published 14.01.2026 by Benjamin Barra in Explorations
2,769 words