I’m pleased to be curating the inaugural Bradford Art Show. The theme for this year is ‘OUR PLACE’ which allows for broad interpretation while enabling the selection process to crystallise around ideas of place and identity during this extraordinary year in Bradford. We want to create an exhibition that is bold, which excites and inspires visitors and which presents an authentic vision of creativity in Bradford at a moment when the Turner Prize exhibition at Cartwright Hall this autumn will shine a national spotlight on the city. Submissions are open now and close on 30 September.

The exhibition is part of OUR TURN, Bradford’s first visual arts festival, taking place between 26 September 2025 – 28 January 2026 in venues and unusual spaces across the city. The festival will enable artists to be more ambitious, provide training for a new generation of culture makers and inspire a range of people to be excited by art which is ‘Made IN Bradford’. It will celebrate Bradford’s rich counter cultural scene and create an accessible platform for new art goers in Bradford, underserved communities and loyal arts audiences.

Designed by Bradford artists, OUR TURN is organised by South Square Centre in collaboration with Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, Bradford Producing Hub and Yorkshire Contemporary. Supported by Arts Council England.

My research into ‘open’ exhibition models has included visits to summer shows (at Redcar Contemporary Art Gallery, London’s Royal Academy and Leeds Playhouse) alongside art-historical research into their emergence and variation. I’ve visited many over the years across the UK and been involved in them as both an artist and a selector. I’m interested in their democratising potential and their capacity for allowing us to tell stories about art in place other to the ones we think we already know.

Bradford Art Show 2025 opens to the public at Loading Bay in Bradford city centre on Saturday 6 December.