City of Culture legacy grants announced

An immersive Afro-diasporic dance-theatre experience and zines celebrating South Asian gardening are among the projects to receive grants as part of a scheme continuing the legacy of Bradford City of Culture 2025.

Bradford Culture Company (BCC) has announced eight projects that will receive funding of up to £20,000 and will take place across the city between now and 31 March 2027.

The Artist Awards programme was set up to continue the legacy of Bradford City of Culture 2025, which attracted three million people across the year.

Director of Programme at BCC Jenny Harris said there had been a “fantastic” breadth of applications for the programme.

She said: “The selected artists and projects really capture the spirit of Bradford, our storytelling, passion for nature, and want for our community and place to be embedded into the work we create.”

Among those to receive awards are artists Amy and Emma-Jo Bairstow, whose project Vespertine Garden will create an immersive installation of UV-lit sculptural plants and creatures at the South Square Centre in Thornton.

Dancer and choreographer Joachim Keke will premiere The Memory House, an immersive Afro-diasporic dance-theatre experience.

In Frizinghall, Zine artist Munaza Kulsoom will create an exhibition and series of zines with South Asian residents about gardening.

Writer, director and artist Kamal Kaan – who won a Gardeners’ World Magazine award for his Saltaire yard – will perform a contemporary dance, music and poetic show called To Leave This Soil Altered.

Funding will also go to Kirsty Taylor, whose theatre show, Birth Mum, will be created in collaboration with women’s services professionals and those with lived experience of child removal.

Poet Kauser Mukhtar will create a puppet show based on a satirical poem by Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore.

There will also be a dance-theatre show by Ella Tighe called Fierce Little Things, and painter Anji Timlin will create work for two separate exhibitions in Keighley and Ilkley.

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