Impressions Gallery

Changing Bradford is an intergenerational community heritage project which sets out to explore the way that South Asian culture, business, religion and arts has helped to shape the city of Bradford since the 1950s.

A group of young people from Manningham Youth Project and members from Impressions Gallery’s New Focus group have been at the centre of the project. Trained in portrait photography and oral history interview techniques, young people have embraced the opportunity to explore and capture some of the personal stories behind Bradford’s history.

Visiting museum collections and archives and undertaking a series of oral history workshops, they have invited a wide cross section of interviewees to reflect on the themes of immigration, built heritage and achievement. An outstanding collection of portrait photographs has resulted along with a rich collection of stories and personal memories, which are recorded in this high quality exhibition and accompanying illustrated publication.

To read more about the development of the project visit the Changing Bradford blog http://changingbradford.blogspot.co.uk/

Changing Bradford is led by Consortia of Ethnic Minority Organisations (COEMO) in partnership with Impressions Gallery and Manningham Youth Project. The project has also benefited from the support of Grange Interlink, West Yorkshire Archive Service (Bradford), BEAP Community Partnership, United Sikh Association Elderly Day Centre and Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery. Supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Further details about the project and the publication can be obtained from COEMO www.coemo.co.uk

exhibition resources

Click here to download an information sheet about the exhibition (pdf 176 kb)
Click here to download a large print information sheet (pdf 156 kb)

what the papers say

Telegraph & Argus
Yorkshire Post

listen again

Click here to hear Meena Jeewa talk about Changing Bradford on BBC Radio Leeds.