In this week’s blog, Costume Society News Editor Dr Babette Radclyffe-Thomas explores the textile-focused art works on show for Bradford 2025 City of Culture.
Bradford became the fourth UK City of Culture in January 2025, and ‘Bradford 2025’ takes place throughout Bradford District featuring exhibitions, events, performances and activities inspired by the landscape. The programme pays homage to the city’s heritage as a former industrial powerhouse, and although later this year a textile biennale will open, there are currently plenty of artworks to see with a focus on Bradford’s rich textile history.
At Salts Mill, a regenerated Grade II listed former textile mill, renowned American artist Ann Hamilton presents We Will Sing. The piece is her first UK show in over 25 years. Covering the entirety of the fourth floor, this new site-responsive installation for Salts Mill is inspired by the district’s rich textile heritage and the history and regeneration of Salts Mills. Inspired by the textile processes and machinery which once filled the huge fourth floor and working with the mill’s artefacts, Hamilton brings together raw and woven wool, cloth and printed word. Textiles are sourced from local Bradford companies including H Dawson, founded in 1888 and based at Salts Mills, and William Halstead, founded 150 years ago. Curated by June Hill and Jennifer Hallam, the exhibition also includes a gallery newspaper and soundscapes.
Salt Mills sits in the heart of the model industrial village of Saltaire which was designated a UNESCO Heritage site in 2001. In 1851 Sir Titus Salt began construction of a new mill and model village in Saltaire having made his fortune in textiles, his innovations included designing a comb for making the mohair of Peruvian alpacas a viable cloth material. Cloth production ceased in 1986 and in 1987 the mill was bought by Jonathan Silver to reimage it as a cultural space.
“We Will Sing began the moment I first opened Salts Mill’s large wooden doors. Crossing the threshold, I felt instantly held and welcomed by an atmosphere of beauty thick with “what was” and “what might be”. My breath slowed, my attention lingered on tables filled with beautiful books, and the sound of opera and the smell of white lilies suffused the air inside the warm stone walls. I immediately sensed this as a place of transformation committed not just to its architecture but to the future of a community and to imagination’s transformative power. I hope my project is a small part of envisioning this possibility. It has been an honour to work with the community, to find openness and generosity, and, like all touch, to be touched in return. This exchange, this sharing, is the heart of We Will Sing,” Ann Hamilton said.
Bradford’s nickname as the ‘Wool Capital of the World’ is a focus of Wild Uplands, a new outdoor exhibition of public artworks on the moors of Penistone Country Park. Four new installations have been created responding to the landscape of the North Pennines and the industrial heritage of the quarries that once operated here. Specifically referencing the district’s wool heritage, Artist Steve Messam has created a 10-metre-high tower clad out of raw fleece of Derbyshire Gritstone and Lonk, two local sheep breeds. The fleece was gathered from over 500 local sheep and Messam was inspired by the role of wool in the industrial heritage of the district. The fleece cladding comments on the role played by sheep in physically shaping and maintaining the surrounding landscape, and by the importance of wool in the industrial history of Bradford. The structure itself is created from block forms drawn from the stone quarrying of Penistone Hill Country Park.
View of Penistone Hill Country Park where four new contemporary works by national and international artists have been installed as part of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture. PA Photo. The park has been transformed into an open- air gallery for Wild Uplands, a series of major new public artworks responding to the landscape, launching on Saturday 24 May 2025. Photo credit: Jon Super/PA Media Assignments
Nearby the uplands is of course The Brontë Parsonage Museum in the picturesque Haworth, where Charlotte Brontë’s Thackeray dress is on show. Bronte wore this dress to meet William Thackeray in 1850, and is shown alongside accessories such as gloves, fan and shoes.
Towards the end of July, an outdoor interactive artwork plans to celebrate the city’s textile heritage. A Good Yarn by artist Luke Jerram and theatre company Bloomin’ Buds is envisioned as a community created giant ball of yarn that will be rolled through the streets of Bradford. Fabric and clothing donations across the district will be plaited into a rope stretching more than a kilometre and then winding into a yarn ball, three metres high and wide.
In October, STRIKE, a light, sound and projection artwork will take place at Lister Mills to celebrate the groundbreaking 1890 Lister & Co silk mill strike. The workforce striking was largely female and the strike ultimately led to the foundation of the Labour Party.
We Will Sing runs until 2 November 2025 and Wild Uplands is open until October 2025.
