Bradford and Leeds share many complicated and fascinating histories as well as retaining their own distinct stories and identities. This season seeks to make sense of our shared concerns while examining the way we shape our cultural and sculptural environments.

Saad Qureshi in conversation with Sarah Victoria Turner

Wednesday 10 September
In conversation
The Bradford Playhouse

The season begins in September with an in conversation between artist Saad Qureshi and Sarah Victoria Turner, Director of the Paul Mellon Centre. Qureshi’s monumental public sculpture, Tower of Now, was installed in Bradford’s city centre in April 2025. The sculpture is a tribute to the rich variety of cultures present in Bradford. Turner and Qureshi will discuss the commission within the context of Qureshi’s wider practice, which explores personal and collective memory and identity.

Placemaking: The Past, Present, and Future of Public Sculpture and Urban Regeneration

Friday 17 October
Academic symposium
University of Bradford

This one-day academic symposium brings together new research from some of the leading voices in the history of public sculpture and look at its role in energising community-formation, urban regeneration, and civic pride. Organised in partnership with the Twentieth Century Society, it will give new emphasis to public sculpture used to create distinctive and much-loved and used civic spaces such as market-squares and transport hubs.

Calls for Participation
Submit a proposal below to participate in this symposium. Deadline is Monday 8 September 2025.

Power for the People: Art, Protest, and the Archives of Activism

Wednesday 12 November
Conference
Victoria Hall, Saltaire

Bradford and Leeds have significant archival holdings relating to activist art. In Leeds we have the Archive of Sculptor’s Papers, part of Leeds Museums and Galleries and housed at Henry Moore Institute. In Bradford there is the Special Collections on Peace, Politics and Social Change, which stems from the University of Bradford’s Department for Peace Studies that was established in 1973 and has since developed into an independent library.

Drawing on both cities’ strong industrial heritage, this one-day conference will examine the role of protest and political activism in twentieth and twenty-first century art. It will question the role politics should play in art today and how we understand the porous boundary between mass protest and art making. We’ll look at the histories sitting perhaps underappreciated in our archives and how they can they guide us into the future.

Calls for Participation
Submit a proposal below to participate in this symposium. Deadline is Monday 15 September 2025.

Signs of the Times

December

The season ends in early December with a celebratory event with artist Bernd Trasberger, bringing together art and architectural historians to discuss Trasberger’s new work, Signs of the Times. Trasberger has repurposed artist Fritz Steller’s Kirkgate Market tiles for an artwork in the new Darley Street Market that opened in July.