Writing the North: How 2025 Put Bradford on the Map – Column

RISE Crowd. Image Credit: Bradford 2025.

Each month Keith Fenton, a Leeds-based performance poet, broadcaster and host of Poets Talking Bollocks podcast, explores the events, people and debates shaping literary culture in the North. This month, he looks back on Bradford25, celebrating the creative communities, cultural moments, and local voices that left a lasting cultural imprint on the North.

This column comes to you a little later than it should have done for two reasons. One is that my January was far busier than expected. The other is that in my rare free moments, it has been pleasingly tough for me to process the wonders of the last year, which for me as well as for many of you, was dominated by Bradford25.

In October, my column looked at how our creative communities “reflected us back to ourselves” and how Bradford25 had achieved that in so many ways. When the ‘Rise’ opening ceremonies happened in January 2025, I hadn’t started this column yet (my first one was in June), but if I had, I would have flagged this up back then. 

Standing in a freezing Centenary Square, we looked up at a stage which included local spoken word champion Kirsty “Bratfud” Taylor; up on the roof of the city hall was Kemmi G, known to many of us on the West Yorkshire circuit; a hologram of our good friend and community powerhouse Nabeela Ahmed could be seen on the City One building, and if you looked closely, you could see the legend herself in one of the upper windows, while the brilliant and tireless Ben Crick  (who would later in the year open Bradford Live so thrillingly with Ian McMillan and Bantam of the Opera) conducted his orchestra behind her. There is always the fear, when such a huge opportunity arises for a city to showcase its talent, that it will be squandered, that local cultural icons will be passed over in favour of big names helicoptered in, or for there to be too few spaces dedicated to local talent, but this fear felt unfounded from the start when we could look up and see our creative communities being so obviously reflected back.

RISE, Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, poet Kirsty Taylor. Image Credit: David Levene.

While I’m sure there will be individuals who felt left out or otherwise dissatisfied by the City of Culture year – that is surely inevitable – I am convinced that the overarching communal feeling was positive. Bradford has long been a much maligned and underestimated city, and I am delighted to see that it no longer is. Since it became clear how well Bradford25 was going, I have known people living in the outer eastern parts of Bradford who no longer pretend they live in Leeds, and others living in the outer western parts of Leeds who now claim to live in Bradford! As a resident of Leeds, however, I felt nothing but joy at what was happening.

In the second half of the year, I wrote about other Bradford25 events, particularly Ann Hamilton’s We Will Sing exhibition. As an aside, Hamilton was helicoptered in from elsewhere, in her case from Ohio, but the work she did was developed here using a local space, local materials and the engagement of local communities and businesses, and told local (though also universal) stories. Creative communities in West Yorkshire were connected by what she brought here, and that is a fantastic example for Bradford to have set. I did not write about Hockney’s Painting the Sky lightshow because sadly I was unable to attend, but that and his Draw! project shows that Bradford25 did not ignore their local icons either, and that was also shown with the beautiful and intricate, yet also monumental, Tower of Now by Saad Qureshi. As far as I know, this is due to be dismantled in March (shame!), so those of you who have not seen this extraordinary love-letter to a diverse community should get themselves down to Hall Ings quickly.

David Hockney’s ‘Garrowby Hill’ (1998) created in drones by SKYMAGIC. Image Credit: SKYMAGIC.

I did write in that October piece about Contains Strong Language and other poetry legacy events, but I was not writing for The State of the Arts in April when Kirsty Taylor hosted a joyful night of poetry called Say It As It Is at the Beacon, the portable venue which at that stage was in Wibsey Park (and hosted later SIAIIs at Bowling Park and Cliffe Castle Park). I would have conveyed my rapture at how diverse communities came together in a suburban park and shared words and experiences and revelled in the friendly and connective space.

There are far too many Bradford25 things to analyse in this short piece, but when I reflect that stuff as important as the Turner Prize at Cartwright Hall, all the various community projects, and the smaller events such as Nationhood: Memory and Hope (one of my favourite features of Bradford25, which took place earlier in the year at Impressions Gallery, featuring Ethiopian photographer Aïda Muluneh, as well as several other rising stars including Bradford’s own Roz Doherty and Shaun Connell), only scratch the surface of what happened here. I find it hard to process the enormity of it all.

Nationhood Aïda Muluneh Bradford. Image Credit: Aïda Muluneh.

I met the Creative Director Shanaz Gulzar a few times during 2025, for example at Nabeela Ahmed’s Pahari Poetry night at Loading Bay and at the Great Northern Conference in December, and although I have not got to know her well, I find it hard not to be in awe at what she and her team achieved here. I am not hugely in favour of our honours system, but if anyone deserved a gong in the New Year list, it was her, and I would have recommended her for a far bigger accolade than a mere MBE! I will do my best to bring a feature on, and interview with, this amazing individual some time this year, so that we can talk about the future for Bradford and the legacy of Bradford25 now that it is in the past.

In the meantime, let us all insist on the same high standards of creativity, diversity and connectivity for our own towns and cities across the North. That will be the best legacy of all.

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