Make Yourself at Home is a major exhibition that marries new photography with rich archival material to present a vivid portrait of life in Bradford. Created for Bradford 2025 by New Focus: Bradford Young Curators, Impressions Gallery’s young people’s collective, the exhibition pays homage to the power of Bradford’s people to shape their identities, preserve their cultures – and create themselves a home.

The heart of Make Yourself at Home is a series of new photography commissions from five photographers: Laura Mate, Nathan McGill, Karol Wyszynski, Anselm Ebulue and Tori Ferenc. Some are born-and-bred Bradfordians, while others live and work beyond the district. Together, their images explore themes of heritage, identity and belonging to create a striking portrait of contemporary Bradford.

Make Yourself at Home also features The Bradford Family Album, a community-sourced archive of family photographs. Built through months of dedicated outreach and selected by the Young Curators, the collection brings together personal photographs from households and community hubs to offer an authentic view of Bradford then and now.

New Focus: Bradford Young Curators is part of Impressions Gallery’s award-winning New Focus programme, which supports young people aged 18–25 to become the creatives of the future. Across 18 months of collaboration, mentorship, research and community engagement, the Bradford Young Curators have crafted an exhibition that reconciles personal experience with collective memory, and celebrates what it means to call a place home.

To learn more about the Young Curators, check out one of the members’ blogs detailing their recent trip to London.