We are thrilled to announce that we are recipients of an Arts Council Grant for the Arts. The grant will enable a group of twenty contemporary artists to take inspiration from the Bradford College Textile Archive collections to create new exciting art works in eclectic media for an exhibition, Pick & Mix, to be held in the Bradford College’s Dye House Gallery in 2015.
Helen Farrar, Curator of Textiles, who devised the exhibition explained, "The Pick & Mix exhibition (pick being a play on the textile term 'weft') will be a celebration of Bradford’s eclectic, contemporary, artistic talent. The aim is to promote the Bradford College Textile Archive as valuable, current, relevant design inspiration resource across all arts disciplines, thus reaching a new, wider audience. Artists will be encouraged to consider all the collections within the Archive , ‘Pick’ one or more historic pieces to explore and then ‘Mix’, that is, reinterpret into contemporary artworks using different construction techniques, materials and technologies, perhaps for senses other than visual."
The new works will be exhibited in the Dye House Gallery alongside the original inspiration pieces. The space formally known as the Bradford Gallery was originally established in 2000 through Arts Council and ERDF funding. The space was originally a dye house, built as part of a purpose-built vertical textile mill for the teaching of textiles for the local industry. The Dye House Gallery refurbishment is part of a Skills Funding Agency grant that the College has been awarded to renovate its historic Lister Building.
Clare Lamkin, Bradford College Arts & Cultural Events, added: “We are very grateful to the Arts Council for their support, the grant will enable a unique exhibition which I am sure will create much interest and promote the Textile Archive to a wider audience.”
