When?
18 September - 19 October 2025
What time?
Thursday - Sunday 12 - 4PM
Where?
Loading Bay, Bradford
Join our four Practice: Bradford artists for their group exhibition - launching at Loading Bay to kick-off the OUR TURN programme this autumn!
OUR TURN: Practice Bradford is a group exhibition showcasing new work from four exciting emerging Bradford artists: Joanna Byrne, Atiyya Mirza, Liv Preston and Saba Siddiqui. Opening at Loading Bay, this exhibition launches OUR TURN, a new visual arts festival and major milestone within the UK City of Culture calendar as the Turner Prize heads to the District.
Curated by Yorkshire Contemporary, this exhibition is the culmination of Practice: Bradford, an artist development programme that has provided funding, mentorship, and professional development to the four supported artists.
The OUR TURN festival takes place across the district from 18 September 2025 to 28 January 2026, organised by South Square Centre in collaboration with Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, Bradford Producing Hub and Yorkshire Contemporary.
Launch Event
Join us for this special launch evening for your chance to be among the first to experience the exhibition. We’ll also share more about the wider
OUR TURN programme – an exciting season of visual arts celebrations across the district, led by Bradford artists.
Wednesday 17 September 2025
5.30 – 8.30 PM
Loading Bay, Bradford BD1 3QR
Refreshments will be provided
The launch event is free and open to all, but spaces are limited. Please RSVP and reserve your ticket.
Meet the artists
Atiyya Mirza
British Pakistani artist Atiyya Mirza works with textiles and sculpture to explore womanhood, empowerment and cultural identity. Her vibrant 2D works and installations weave together traditional fabrics and found materials to create transgressive works that challenge cultural stereotypes. For OUR TURN: Practice Bradford, Mirza is creating an ambitious, large-scale, textile installation that invites audiences to playfully engage with themes of domesticity, childhood and gender roles.
Joanna Byrne
Artist Joanna Byrne works with film. Using both photography and moving image, she combines painterly, ecological and experimental techniques to address themes and subjects. Based in Bradford, Byrne is using the programme to explore a post-industrial site in Shipley through projections, photography, sculpture and field recordings. Utilising plants from the site to develop film, her work traces themes of rewilding, ecological resilience, urban memory and interstitial spaces.
Liv Preston
Originally from Keighley, Liv uses sculpture, conceptualism and material culture within her practice, often in connection with underground features, hobbyist communities and industrial legacies. The exhibition shines a light on Preston’s research into Bradford’s subterranean waterways and subcultures, creating works that fuse historical research, site-specific materiality and speculative storytelling.
Saba Siddiqui
Working from her studio in Baildon, Saba Siddiqui uses textiles, sculpture and printmaking techniques to focus on themes of decolonisation, activism and museum practice. Her work draws on her South Asian identity, creating celebratory, multi-sensory installations that foreground communities and accessibility. During the programme, Siddiqui is delving into Bradford’s textile, migration and labour histories, developing a multi-layered installation that creates space to come together and engage in dialogue.
About the venue
Loading Bay
1 Duke Street, Bradford BD1 3QR
Loading Bay is Bradford 2025’s very own pop-up venue in the city. The disused storage depot has been transformed into a temporary culture hub for the City of Culture year – and it’s open now with an action-packed programme.
At Loading Bay, you can experience everything from gigs and comedy nights to exhibitions, immersive theatre shows and even live video games across two performance spaces and a gallery.
This exhibition has been made possible with thanks to:
