Everything You Need To Know About Bradford UK City of Culture 2025

Aboomtown of the Industrial Revolution, Bradford is rich with a dazzlingly diverse mix of cultures. The birthplace of artist David Hockney, magician Dynamo, actor Heather Peace and singers Zayn Malik and Gareth Gates, and a filming location for Peaky Blinders, Happy Valley and The Crown, it became the world's first UNESCO City of Film in 2009. With more than a quarter of its population aged under 20, Bradford is one of the UK’s youngest cities, and from dance and theatre to film, music and food, it’s a hotspot for culture.

Shanaz Gulzar, creative director for Bradford UK City of Culture 2025, explains life in Bradford best. ‘The people are incredibly friendly and welcoming,’ she says. ‘You could speak to anyone if you needed directions or needed to ask something and they’d try and help you. You'd be absolutely bowled over by the architecture. You can see the history and heritage in the city and district’s architecture. You can tell that it was once a thriving mill [area].

‘The food here is amazing. Obviously [as] the South Asian community have made home here you can find some astonishing South Asian cuisine of all different types. You can have something very simple through to MyLahore (which has kind of created a fusion, British-Asian, style of cuisine) and then you could go to Prashad, which is an award-winning, Gujarati vegetarian restaurant, and gives you a very different flavour.

‘Then you get into the arts, culture and creativity. We have the National Science and Media Museum, which is part of the Science Museum Group, and has just recently had a refurb and feels like a world-class museum. I'm sitting here at Cartwright Hall, a purpose-built gallery. It has some of David Hockney’s childhood drawings and early work. You can absolutely see the skill and talent that was in him from being a child, to his early years as an artist and creative. Then there’s Salts Mill which is the first mill that my father worked in when he first came to this country. It was bought by a family who have turned it into a destination that holds contemporary and historic work by David Hockney, bookshops, design shops, gallery spaces and cafés. It shows how a location that used to once-upon-a-time be a wool mill, now has a new purpose and a new existence.

There’s so much on offer here. For a good weekend of walking, there’s an incredibly diverse landscape to go walking in. I don’t know how many people know that the Brontës are from Bradford – Haworth is part of our district. It feels like an embarrassment of riches for anyone who has never been here.’

Since the announcement in 2022, excitement has been building and not even subzero temperatures could keep visitors away from the launch event this January. ‘More than 24,000 people braved the subzero temperatures,’ Shanaz says. ‘That wasn't just Bradfordians, it was Northern and national. It was absolutely fantastic to see how many people had travelled to be a part of it. And Bradford has so much to offer. It’s incredibly innovative, incredibly inventive and incredibly entrepreneurial. It has that way of doing things that I think as City of Culture can only help elevate it. I think the designation helps a place reframe and redefine itself.’

The year of celebrations launched with RISE, an outdoor extravaganza likened to an Olympic opening ceremony by magician Steven Frayne, formerly known as Dynamo. Shortly after, David Hockney: Pieced Together, a new temporary exhibition, opened at the National Science and Media Museum. ‘We've also got Fighting to Be Heard, which is a partnership with the British Library, and Grue, which is a brilliant kind of children's wonderland made of cardboard that is being built as we speak in the basement of one of our mills, near the amazing industrial Bingley Five Rise Locks. The Wrong Trousers by Wallace and Gromit is being screened with a live scoring by the City of Bradford Brass Band. We’re going to be launching the first callout for DRAW!, which is our campaign for drawing supported by David Hockney, and we've got the brilliant Railway Children coming home to the very location that both the films were filmed at – that's happening over the summer. And there is so, so much more. We've announced, I would say, just just under half our programme, and we’ll announce the remaining half over the next three months.’

Left top/bottom: Wonderlab © National Science and Media Museum | BD is Lit 2023 © Louie Haslam-Chance. Middle: David Hockney sits on a chair in front of one of his paintings © Tommy London / Alamy. Right top/bottom: Visit Saltaire - Visit Bradford © Visit Saltaire | Ilkley Moor - Visit Bradford © Visit Bradford.

Shanaz is excited about what’s to come, adding ‘I think this is going to be a very successful year’. ‘I think it's going to be an incredibly successful city of culture,’ she continues. ‘Quite possibly one of the most successful. It's definitely the biggest, absolutely – we’re covering 141 square miles! I think the future is bright for Bradford. We've got the Brit School moving to Bradford – the second Brit School in the UK and the only one in the North. The new Interchange Station location has been agreed and will be built in the next 10 years, but also some of our partnerships that are being developed as part of the City of Culture, and some of the ways of working, will continue to be nurtured and developed in order for them to continue post-2025.’

To keep up to date with the City of Culture celebrations, visit bradford2025.co.uk.