Creative Communities Fund projects

This celebration will mark 20 years of the Anchor Project and 130 years of St Clement’s Church, and will include a Bradford-based artist working with people to depict the diversity of the Anchor Project community, church and local area. Creative Communities Fund support will enable the development of this piece of work, creating an artistic response to past stories, present feelings and future hopes for our local community and city.

Bingley Arts Centre has been awarded funding to hold community consultations run by a freelance community consultant professional.

These community consultations are designed to find out what people want and expect in Bingley in terms of creative opportunities – and where the gaps and barriers are. From this learning, they plan to engage freelance arts professionals and their community groups to run free creative participation workshops, kickstarting new activities and reinvigorating existing community creative organisations.

This project aims to bring together children and young people aged 6–17 who have come to UK in the last two years as asylum seekers, as migrants and on the assisted settlement programme.

Participants will be supported to create life-story books using art to express themselves and tell their stories, while also gaining knowledge about the UK and Bradford’s diverse communities.

This support will allow Bradford Friendship Choir to present a celebration of music and creativity.

Around each equinox, as the seasons turn, the choir will create an event in partnership with others that engages directly with the natural world practically and through song and sharing food.

• Spring: A vegetable and herb planting workshop.
• Summer: An outdoor gathering for a giant Bradford picnic bringing together old traditions.
• Autumn: Allotments hosting a barbecue of excess produce and a singing session.
• Winter: Making lanterns to light our way into the dark.

The Bradford Hindu Council will be supported to deliver cultural exchange festivals celebrating the traditions, music, dance, food and arts of various Indian communities.

These festivals will foster cross-cultural appreciation, unity, and inclusion within Bradford. Alongside them, the centre will run culturally rich arts and crafts workshops, poetry and storytelling sessions plus yoga sessions, offering a holistic experience of Indian culture.

Bradford Organic Communities Services will run a creative upcycling project using materials from their onsite Scrap Magic Scrap Store and from their gardens, transforming them into new items that anyone could be proud of.

This funding will allow Bradford South Asian Heritage Forum to plan and deliver a two-part community outreach and creative activity programme for the 2024/2025 Bradford South Asian Festivals, culminating in a multi-mode artistic showcase and installation during their August 2025 festival weekender.

The installation in 2025 could include suitcases, ‘tape letters’, aerogrammes and other artefacts commemorating the initial immigrant journeys of the first and second waves of South Asian immigrants into Bradford, from the 1950s through to the 1970s.

This project will tell powerful stories about cycling and what it means to people, celebrating and building on the cultures of cycling across Bradford District.

Artists will work with the cycling community, creatively documenting their stories through artforms including print, photography, film, poetry and music.

This support will help Connect The Dots to run a graffiti art workshop with the theme of inclusion and celebrating differences. Attendees will each create a canvas and T-shirt to represent themselves. They will learn the techniques and styles of graffiti artistry, and techniques will include spray painting and stencil design. The canvas works will go on display in the Connect The Dots centre.

Creative Flare Yorkshire will use this support to plan a community fashion show. The fund will support the costs for designing and making clothes; the workshops; and the rehearsals for the final event, which will showcase different cultures through fashion.

This project will offer creative opportunities for young people who would not normally be involved in art and cultural activities – focusing on ‘labyrinths’. It will inspire young people, broaden their knowledge and understanding of art and culture, and teach new creative skills, which participants can then take away and share with others in their community.

This funding will allow Impact Gamers to deliver games-making workshops at their base in BD5 for young people aged 8–14. The young people will design and work alongside Impact Gamers to produce the game of their design to the theme of their choosing.

Inspire Highfield will use this support to produce a film and arts festival celebrating community artwork. Art classes will involve all sections of the community, celebrating local places and spaces and their cultures.

The funding will also allow Inspire Highfield to set up film screenings that encourage participation, engaging its local community to work on the project: setting up film kit, preparing the hall, making coffee and cake. This community effort will bring people together to celebrate, start conversations, share stories and make new friends.

Intercultured will deliver cultural events in locations across Bradford as part of its festival. The project will allow the festival to reach into communities with lower levels of cultural engagement.

Invictus Wellbeing will work in partnership with schools, colleges and hubs to create a vibrant, interactive art project where ‘Invictus Rocks’ are created and shared within the community.

The team will work with young people aged 5–18 to create unique and individual pieces of work that encourage and inspire others with an image, words or both – focusing on positivity, encouragement, kindness, strength and support. These artworks will be created on pebbles or flat rocks and will be hidden within local communities for another person to discover. They can then either be kept, gifted on or re-hidden.

This project will see a pilot sculpture trail created in Keighley in collaboration with local artist Leonie Briggs, one of its studio holders. It will consist of ten one-foot-high sculptures designed and decorated by community groups and artists, installed in various locations in Keighley.

This project will allow Keighley Photo Hub to take the joy and creativity of photography into the heart of the community, focusing on reaching people who are underrepresented and underserved by current cultural and creative offers.

The Hub will create a Mobile Eco Darkroom, transforming a caravan into a travelling educational and practical workspace. The darkroom will travel to schools, community spaces, events and festivals so that everyone can learn the joys and benefits of traditional photography when practiced in a sustainable and plant-based way.

This project will teach filmmaking skills to older people in a face-to-face social space where they can ask questions and collaborate with others, supporting them to overcome any technical phobia they might have. For carers, this project offers a social opportunity to spend time with others.

Meridian Centre will deliver intergenerational activity sessions, including cooking, passing on cultural and culinary legacies to the younger generation; arts and crafts activities, such as tile painting, pottery and mosaic making; and physical excercise outside in a local park or woodland, encouraging enjoyment of the outdoors and meeting new people.

Muslim Women’s Council will use this support to establish a local choir. It will serve as a welcoming and inclusive space for Muslim women and girls from all backgrounds to celebrate their unique blend of Muslim, British and South Asian heritage through music, fostering unity and cross-community interaction.

This project will explore three main creative art forms: visual arts, literature and cooking. Activities include:

• Visual arts activities exploring heritage crafts.
• Cooking classes exploring cultural cuisines found across Bradford.
• Creative writing, using hip hop and urban culture as a theme.
• A theatre production that can be showcased at both the Gateway Centre and the Rockwell Centre in Ravenscliffe.
• A ‘look book’ designed by participants to showcase people’s work and the stories from Ravenscliffe and the project as a whole.

This project will support children and young people to develop their sense of belonging, harnessing the power of theatre as a vehicle to explore self-identity and internal narratives.

RedBobble Arts aims to raise individual aspirations, increase confidence, self-worth and improve wellbeing for all participants. The company will use theatre techniques such as life story mapping, mime, mask, clowning, improvisation, Augusto Boal restorative theatre techniques, scriptwriting, objective work, performance, spoken word and film.

This funding will allow the facilitation of art therapy sessions as part of a recovery mechanism for those recovering from substance use disorders, addictive behaviours and associated mental health issues. It will support the development of a suitable arts programme and mindful therapy expressed through art for some of the most vulnerable people in our locality.

This funding will supports a series of creative workshops with the many different groups of people at Shine, including the refugees group, the men’s group, the job club, the women’s group and others. The project aims for the groups to create an artwork together that speaks powerfully of hope and the potential for healing.

This support will allow Small World Cultural Arts Collective to deliver a range of activities with local community groups in Keighley, aimed at providing them with new opportunities to explore creativity and culture with an end product to be displayed in the town centre.

SNOOP will co-deliver a programme of cultural and heritage activities and podcasts with children and young people.

The overarching aim of the project will be an exploration of what life is like for a person with neurodiversity or a learning disability living within Bradford District. SNOOP want to celebrate all the great things the city has to offer, but also to highlight the barriers our community faces – especially in regard to accessing activities.

20 Arches of Possibility is an ambitious placemaking co-creation project led by Young People to repurpose 145-year-old Thornton Viaduct. Through creative workshops facilitated by Nelson & Woodward, the project will draw out their aspirations for the future, mirroring the vast ambition of the 20-arch architectural feat.

Nelson & Woodward will co-create a pavilion for the temporary activity taking place on Thornton Viaduct. The installation will be designed, built and programmed by young people in collaboration with residents, and will be showcased in 2025.

Spin Arts are creating a large-scale outdoor dance and rap concert that will celebrate Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) communities in Bradford as part of Bradford 2025.

Presented in Knowles Park, Holmewood in September 2025, the show will be co-created with the community. Their stories/experiences will be shaped into a rap album by Romany Gypsy rapper Big Deli, creating a soundtrack for the production.

This support will enable Undercliffe Cemetery Charity to deliver a programme of activities, workshops and events held at or inspired by historic Undercliffe Cemetery, including:

• A photography and filmmaking project for young people from the area to create a bank of images of the cemetery.
• A craft workshop with differently abled students creating artworks based on the sculptures in the cemetery.
• Working with the children at Peel Park Primary School to create resources about the cemetery, which can be used by other schools in the district as part of the Bradford Curriculum.
• The creation of a pop-up ‘Death Café’ at the Lodge at Undercliffe, providing an opportunity for those of all faiths and none going though bereavement, grief and loss to work with Nicola Murray of Bradford Death Café and meet other people in similar circumstances.
• Songwriting workshops with the Commoners Choir, creating a new choral piece about some of the key figures buried in the cemetery.

The Valley Project will celebrate Holmewood place in Bradford’s culture while promoting a respectful curiosity for other worldwide societies. This project will explore what culture means to children and young people, including attitudes, customs, behaviour, beliefs, language, rituals, values and roles.

This funding will support Step Into My World, a multi-disciplinary arts project working with Pause and Barnardos in Bradford. Step Into My World will work directly with a group of some of the most marginalised people in Bradford, creating artwork and poetry that will lead to a series of exhibitions.

West Bowling Youth Initiative will run a series of creative youth photography-based stories about places and people – formed from images young people take on their mobile phones. Young people will produce their own stories that then will be shared visually in local buildings, raising the creditability of young people, reflecting on the impact of places and people in their lives.

Yorkshire Life Aquatic will use this support to run a project fusing Bollywood dance styles and synchronised swimming techniques. This will take place at Ilkley Lido and the adjoining Ilkley Cricket Club Community Space.