Hundreds of people braved the challenging weather to catch STRIKE, a major free event at Lister Mills.

Created by Urban Projections, this spectacular sound and light show explored a landmark moment in the history of Bradford and the modern labour movement – the Manningham Mills Strike of 1890 – and spotlighted the fearless women who made it happen. Nabeela Ahmed and Mek Summat led free poetry, banner and print-making workshops with schools and community groups to mark the show, which also inspired a series of schools workshops.

British Asian style past and present took the spotlight at Loading Bay in the debut installation from fashion designer Zain Ali. Nisbet Road Tailor Shop was an immersive recreation of South Asian tailors in the ’70s and ’80s – an era that led to a new type of style rooted in British Asian culture. The show featured archival pieces, rare photographs and original textile installations by Ali, one of the most exciting new voices in British fashion.

You created, built new worlds, invented new games and reimagined discarded material at REPLAY. The Herd created a recycled playground without limits for families of all ages – a space built entirely from reused materials, repurposed for fun! Part of our year programme PLAY, this extraordinary experience changed the way we saw the world around us.

DRAW!, our nationwide drawing project supported by David Hockney, welcomed a guest host with a difference for October: graffiti artist Gent 48 (aka Joshua Billingham). Gent 48’s public work is mostly at made scale with paints. But as he says, ‘In graffiti, drawing is everything. The wall starts in the sketchbook – every letter, every flow, every wild idea begins with a line.’ That could be a motto for the entire DRAW! programme…

Four more Bradford 2025 Artist-Led Project Awards saw the light of the Bradford day this month:

• Bring It Back was Natalie Davies’ immersive theatre tribute to Bradford’s musical heritage.
• BRAVE Festival 2025, directed by artist Trisha Arthur-Stubbs and held at Bradford Arts Centre, celebrated the power, beauty, and brilliance of Black culture through the arts.
• Plug It Up was a DIY sound art festival with workshops and performances led by female and marginalised-gender artists, produced by Bradford Sound Wom*n Network in partnership with Yorkshire Sound Women Network.
• Shadmanny! saw the Bradford South Asian Heritage Forum invite us into the glorious Technicolor world of South Asian weddings.
• Pins for Peace saw local art instigators Mek Summat come together with Bradford’s Peace Museum to present a new large-scale exhibition inspired by Pin Badges in Saltaire.

It’s been brilliant to work with the BBC, who’ve been staunch and enthusiastic supporters of Bradford 2025 – and October saw a couple of big BBC events hit town.

• The BBC New Comedy Awards sprinkled a little stardust on the Alhambra Theatre, with Eli Hart crowned BBC New Comedian 2025 – see the final on BBC iPlayer.
• And on a TV screen near you, at least if you have any children aged six and under, there’s the annual CBeebies Panto – filmed at the Alhambra and broadcast over Christmas.

We joined up this month with Castles in the Sky Projects for the Back in the Pink Weekender, a weekend-long celebration of gay life in Bradford – past, present and future. From a cabaret party hosted by the legendary David Hoyle to discussions, walking tours and a pop-up exhibition, the weekend threw a long-overdue spotlight on the city’s rich and radical gay heritage.

In Autumn, Our Patch continued to celebrate community creativity in as many different ways as people could imagine.

Highlights this month included:

• Boxing for Wellbeing engaged young people with the disciplines of boxing and calligraphy.
• The Lower Grange Culture Café made breakfasts from around the World.
• The DRAW Tour popped up across the District once again.

• Alive & Kicking presented more ‘Drama adventures’ for under-11s in primary schools across the district.
• More secondary schools and further-education settings enjoyed full-day art workshops inspired by Ann Hamilton’s installation We Sill Sing at Salts Mill.
• Science Explorers Play Labs continued introducing the under-5s to science through creative play.
• PLAY: Common Ground made further connections between learners in SEND settings and mainstream schools through creative expression.
• The Sound of Bradford provided more music production workshops for secondary school children, inspired by immersive sound walk Earth & Sky.

• The Kirkgate Shopping Centre turned gallery for Hardy and Free, Carolyn Mendelsohn’s monumental exhibition of photographs celebrating the connections between Yorkshire women and the natural world. See the portraits online.
• St George’s Hall hosted a pair of musically different but equally brilliant gigs: Rizwan–Muazzam Qawwali Group, the torchbearers for Sufi devotional music; and John Grant, the honey-voiced singer-songwriter performing his first headline show in Bradford.
• Our Open-Air Cinema season drew to a close with a bone-chilling experience – an outdoor screening of The Others, presented in the spooky surroundings of Milner Field Manor Ruins.
• A chorus of 35 older local people joined six professional performers for 509 Arts’ Life Class, a moving show about the changes that happen to us as we age, informed by creative workshops with older people in Bradford during 2025.