Alan Dearling travelled over by train to Bradford Interchange clutching a Sony camera and a camera phone to take a look at the first events to be held in the recently re-opened National Science and Media Museum. He was also intrigued to see how well prepared, or otherwise, Bradford was for its new status as the 2025 UK City of Culture.
January 2025 began amidst fanfares, and much publicity for Bradford in West Yorkshire. In fact, there have been many news and media articles about Bradford. Here’s what it said in the Channel 4 News:
“Bradford is preparing for its opening celebration to mark the start of it becoming the UK’s City of Culture 2025. More than 1,000 events will take place this year, hoping to draw in over three million visitors and generate an extra £700m by 2030. But can this cultural event be enough to change the city’s image and ensure a lasting legacy of levelling up?”
From Wikipedia, we learn that the UK City of Culture is now awarded to either a ‘city’ or to an entire UK area.
“The designation is awarded to cities every four years, through a competition, with the inaugural holder of the title being Derry in 2013. Kingston upon Hull was the second holder of the title in 2017, and on 7 December 2017 it was declared that Coventry was designated with the title for 2021. The bidding process for the 2025 title was conducted between 2021 and 2022, with Bradford announced as the winner on 31 May 2022.”
One of the galleries at the National Science and Media Museum is currently home of the David Hockney ‘Pieced Together’ exhibition. This has been previously on display at various locations, but it is nice, and very appropriate for an exhibition in the heart of the city. David grew up around Bradford and studied at the Bradford School of Art in 1953, specialising in life drawing. More recently, his stunning use of colours, video, photography and computer art have wowed crowds to numerous of his personal shows. ‘Pieced Together’ is an evocative and crowd-pleasing mix of mostly cut-up and repurposed photos and video film. It includes Hockney’s 1982 painstakingly re-created portrait of David’s mother at Bolton Abbey in 1982.
As of the end of January 2025, two other exhibition galleries are open to the public at the National Science and Media Museum. One is the Kodak Museum of Photography located at the basement level. This houses a large array of cameras, many local and national black and white photographs, and some interesting ‘tales’ about photographers, photography and the subjects captured in front of the lens. There are also some interactive exhibits.
The third gallery is the ‘Wonderlab’, Sound & Vision space, which is filled with science-for-fun exhibits. Plenty of optical and sound illusions, including heat sensitive cameras/images, and the fabulous mirror maze. You can see at least six of me! Horrible thought!
So, there are exhibits to see at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, but given that this is the very special year of cultural celebration for Bradford, it felt a trifle sad, and something of rather a lost opportunity that so many other galleries were under renovation and preparation for summer 2025 or later.
The publicity for the 2025 celebrations in the official, ‘It starts here’ leaflet offers glimpses of what is to come later in the year at a variety of venues in Bradford and the surrounding hinterland. These include ‘Fighting to be Heard’, an exhibition linking together calligraphy and boxing at the Cartwright Art Gallery, and ‘Richard Hawley & The Black Dyke Band’ on 12th April.
Even more weirdly to my mind, is that the newest David Hockney exhibition has just opened at Salts Mill in nearby Saltaire, where the largest collection of Hockney artworks is housed. This show doesn’t seem to feature in the 2025 UK City of Culture celebrations/programme.
Walking around in Bradford City Centre feels like being enveloped in vistas of stark contrasts. There is the truly magnificent Centenary Square, dominated by the Italianate City Hall. But elsewhere, there’s major building and landscaping works taking place. Many shops and entire buildings are boarded up or awaiting major refurb. It doesn’t really radiate cultural regeneration. At best, it suggests small shoots of optimism. But talking to a number of locals, I rather got the impression that theirs is more a resigned pessimism: “It is what it is.”
One can hope that as 2025 moves forwards, the events, spaces and places will be more ‘joined-up’, more culturally and artistically holistic. In the meanwhile, a few images from my visit to Bradford 2025.
Here are some links on-line:
David Hockney website: https://www.hockney.com/exhibitions/upcoming
The National Science and Media Museum on-line:
“Bradford: City of Culture 2025 — Exploring the transformative impact of image and sound technologies on our lives. We are transforming the museum with brand new galleries.”
