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Our lack of medium-size cultural venues and low national investment means there are fewer opportunities here for people to see work or to make work on a big scale — whether that’s a gallery big enough for large sculptures or a stage big enough for a dozen contemporary dancers. There are also no facilities in the District to make large-scale work.
A street theatre performer wearing an illuminated costume in the style of a large large skirt, leans over to amuse a crowd of delighted young people. Image ©Tim Smith
A young child looking at a an enormous artwork on a wall which features a child's face blown up to a huge size as if it were a mountain and with a person in climbing equipment placed on the nose of the child as if climbing up the face. Image ©Rachel Shaw
An image from Mind the Gap's production Zara, showing a huge sitting puppet of a baby girl interacting with an actor playing its mother. The actor stands in a cherrypicker crane to be at eye level with the baby, meanwhile a crowd of puppeteers on the gound use long poles to animate the baby's arms and hands. Image ©Chris Payne
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'Where are the jobs? There are some community arts opportunities, which are great, but where are the chances in Bradford to perform professionally at the scale that I’ve be trained for?'
Meanwhile, the District is regularly acclaimed as one of the most entrepreneurial places in the UK. While we have great cultural entrepreneurs from the Silver family at Salts Mill to the Bread and Roses cooperative on North Parade, we need to encourage more creatives to set up, scale up and create more jobs here. With investment, we can become a destination of choice for regional, national and international artists and co-producers.
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We certainly have the talent – however, too often, our boldest works are realised outside the District! In 2019, Common Wealth created a huge immersive performance work in central Manchester to honour the 200th anniversary of the Peterloo massacre. The same year, Mind the Gap, with help from Arts Council England’s Ambition for Excellence programme, created Zara, a fantastic outdoor performance with a cast of over 100 and a mechanical, moving baby bigger than a double decker bus. It was performed to more than 8,000 people in Halifax and London, but not in Bradford.
Bradford is proudly the first ever UNESCO City of Film, but while the District is often backdrop to films and TV series, there are no independent production companies based in the District. We have the young talent but don’t yet have the support structures to enable companies to set up and invest in the region.
A rock band playing on stage in St Georges hall to a packed auditorium of fans. Image ©Nigel Hillier
‘Culture is thinking big and bold and sharing a reality and a vision’
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Thanks to Bradford Theatres, we have longstanding relationships with national companies including the Royal Shakespeare Company, Halle Orchestra and Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures. We should think big with these national partners too.
Thinking big can have amazing results:
In 2016, Cartwright Hall started to consult with David Hockney and hundreds of local school children about what a gallery to celebrate the early work of the great artist should be like. The questions posed to him by children of Bradford led to the creation of a £300,000 gallery and an 85% increase in visitor figures. It also transforms how people see their horizons: A Year 4 teacher at Bradford’s St Oswald’s Primary School said, 'It shows Hockney as an inspiration to Bradford school children, they are now aware that people from Bradford can be world leaders.'
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Thinking Big is about providing more opportunity for national and international artists to make work in the District but also to develop the talent already here. 'It's all about opportunity. The artists and their skills and talents are already there'
↓ What we'll do
Launch the new screen strategy for the District in 2021.
As Seen on Screen offers the District a bold and ambitious vision for the future.
Screen business is booming across the UK, but our screen sector is currently small and lagging behind the rest of our region, so there is real scope for Bradford to play a bigger part in this success story, becoming far more than a great film set.
As Seen on Screen aims to stimulate local screen production with particular emphasis on short-form, TV, mobile, digital and games – and on the diverse young people and stories that make Bradford so attractive to broadcasters and media businesses such as
Channel 4.
The strategy aims to level the playing field and establish a maturing, joined-up screen sector by 2025. It will be well connected to the wider screen sector but have its own distinctive style, giving a stronger voice to Bradford’s people both on and off screen. It will:
Reimagine our UNESCO City of Film as a dynamic, creative screen hub and production centre
Provide a joined-up, lifelong screen education and skills pathway
Build partnerships with broadcasters and content creators regionally and nationally
Strengthen our relationships with national funders and supporters
Connect local content creators to one another
Show great content on screens across the District
Create clean-growth screen-sector jobs
Showcase the real Bradford to the world
Give our people a stronger voice