Latest news with #509Arts
BBC News
30-03-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Bradford exhibition showcases unheard stories of textile industry
An immersive exhibition about the textile industry tells the stories of people who worked in Bradford's mills between 1970 and Stories, at the Loading Bay gallery on Duke Street, features archive films and voice recordings, against a specially recorded is being staged by 509 Arts and The Colour Foundry, and aims to showcase the industry's more modern history, with much of the existing storytelling focused on the Victorian era.509 Arts artistic director Alan Dix, who worked in a mill himself, said: "I wanted to tell a different story that involved Ford Cortinas and Bollywood and curry houses and flares and Abba." "Children in Bradford were being told about Bradford's textile heritage in terms of Victorian mills and mill owners and women in long frocks and big bonnets and children getting trapped in looms," he said. A 20-minute film was created using recordings from 509 Arts' Lost Mills and Ghost Mansions project, in which they interviewed 80 people who worked in the textile industry between 1970 and interviews were then taken by a composer, projectionist and a visual artist from The Colour Foundry who "mashed" them together with footage from the Yorkshire Film Dix said: "We were determined to make it feel more contemporary."We didn't want to do a 'it were 'ard and we lived on gravel' kind of show."We've collected images and films in the process in putting the project together over the last two years and mashed it into an installation DJ set." 'Complicated place' Though Bradford's textile industry dates back more than 700 years, in the second half of the 20th Century the sector changed as workers joined from different ethnic Dix said: "Bradford is a complicated place – like lots of cities."It's got an international demographic that increasingly cities across the world are acquiring as people move in, move out and change, and some people stay over generations and some people move on."We wanted to reflect a tiny bit of that process, so it's not static."Things aren't fixed over time, people's lives change and we wanted to show some of that."The exhibition, launched to coincide with Bradford's year as City of Culture, will run until Sunday, with musicians from the City of Bradford Brass Band performing across the weekend. Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Immersive experience' tells story of Bradford's mill history
BRADFORD'S mill history forms the basis of an immersive art exhibit running in Bradford city centre until Sunday. Unspun Stories by Shipley based 509 Arts mixes projections of mills, machinery and textiles from Bradford's past with words from the people who worked the city's mills. These images and words are interspersed with music and sound effects in the darkened basement space of Loading Bay – a new venue that is hosting dozens of City of Culture events in 2025. The Unspun Stories installation (Image: T&A) From work conditions to mill fires, people who worked in the industry that defined Bradford for generations told their stories to the arts group, who then created the work to record a significant part of local history. The Unspun Stories installation (Image: T&A) It also looks at the role of immigration in the city's industries, with people travelling from across the world to work in Bradford's mills. The Unspun Stories installation (Image: T&A) It is part of 509 Arts Lost Mills and Ghost Mansions project, a study that looks at the mill industry from the 1970s onwards – a time when it went into steep decline. The Unspun Stories installation (Image: T&A) The event is free and runs from noon until 6pm each day until Sunday On Saturday (29) and Sunday (30) parts of the soundtrack will be performed live in the installation. Two brass musicians from the City of Bradford Brass Band and the composer, Nick Lewis, will bring an added musical dimension to the immersive experience of Unspun Stories at 3pm, 4pm and 5:30pm on both days.
