Autumn 2025
The Power of Public Sculpture
with Henry Moore Institute
Celebrating public sculpture through a series of talks and symposiums.
Together with Henry Moore Institute, we are celebrating Bradford’s rich sculptural, architectural and political history and looking to the future for the city and its artists.
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.
Fri 17 Oct
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.
Wed 12 Nov
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 there is the Archive of Sculptors’ 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.
Dec
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.
Partners
Tickets →
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In Conversation with Ann Hamilton and Guests
Join international textile artist, Ann Hamilton, as she shares her inspiration and processes creating We Will Sing and asks what does the future need to know?
13 Nov 2025
Turner Lates: November
DJs, music, fashion, food, workshops and more at our young people’s night.
11 Dec 2025