AN “incredibly rich” programme of events for Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture is expected to be announced tomorrow.
It is more than two years since the city and district won the title, beating County Durham, Southampton and Wrexham County Borough to the crown on May 31, 2022.
Now it is the eve of Bradford 2025 being launched and an event to announce the programme for next year will take place at St George’s Hall tomorrow evening.
Shanaz Gulzar, creative director of Bradford 2025 and an acclaimed artist, producer, and presenter, will be joined by artists and creatives from across the programme at the launch event.
The Telegraph & Argus spoke to Ms Gulzar ahead of the big day.
She said: “I am absolutely thrilled to be announcing the programme as currently where we’ve got to, because we can’t announce all of it, because there’s so much, there’s an entire year.
“We also wanted to be able to have some announcements later on in the year.
“But I’m so thrilled to get to this point, to be able to share what we’ve been developing, what we’ve been doing, artists based locally, nationally, and internationally.
“It’s just amazing to be able to do this.”
Ms Gulzar took on the role in autumn 2022, shortly before executive director Dan Bates, and it felt then like there was time to play with.
But Ms Gulzar said: “We were starting from scratch, we also knew we had to raise funds, we had to pull together a programme, we had to speak to partners.
“It was a beginning, so it felt like we had a journey ahead of us, but it’s flown by.
“The amount of positive experiences with partners who want to be part of this moment of change for Bradford, this moment of celebration – because it is about our history, our heritage, but it’s about our present and our future as well.”
Events will kick off in January and run right throughout the year, concluding in December.
Ms Gulzar said: “You can expect a fantastic programme that is across the city and district in the entire year.
“It’s also incredibly rich – we’re both urban and rural and to be able to celebrate the opportunity that gives us, no other City of Culture has had that.
“When I say to interviewers who don’t know the city and district, I say we’re 140 square miles as a UK City of Culture, and you can see them working out the complexities of that.
“I always say but think about the opportunity in that, think about what we are able to deliver, what we are able to do.
“I think we’ve got some extraordinary projects that we’re going to be able to announce for 2025 in the upcoming announcement.”
It makes sense that one of the main players for Bradford 2025 hails from the district.
Ms Gulzar said: “I’m a Keighley girl, I’m a born and bred Bradford lass, and when you’re from Keighley you know what it means to grow up in a working-class town, in a northern mill town.
“Bradford is a working-class city, we absolutely wear that identity and that history with pride.
“Bradford was woolopolis, so it was the backbone of wool and the woollen industry for this country, for decades, for nearly on 100 hundreds.”
As a proud Bradfordian and someone passionate about arts, culture, creativity, and imagination, who knows the opportunities the creative industries give young people, Ms Gulzar feels leading the district into the City of Culture year is “something that you can only dream of”.
She said: “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to bring all of your passion, your experience, your knowledge to bear to create something that is extraordinary in the place that you were born and brought up in.”
The launch event begins at 6.30pm tomorrow.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel