Alison McIntyre is a BPH’s Creative Instigator, with a visual art specialism, but supporting across all artforms. She spends time speaking with artists and organisations to understand their needs and how we can best support and advocate for them.
Every other month, Alison hosts Creative Support Sessions both in-person and online. Through these sessions, Alison can provide creative advice and signpost to funding, support and networking opportunities for people working in the Bradford cultural sector. In the alternating months Alison hosts Crit Club, holding space for visual artists to get constructive feedback.
“I love that Bradford is developing its cultural sector with such a strong focus on the people who live and work here. It’s tricky to keep a focus on that when you’re the UK City of Culture, but through partnership with BPH and initiatives like The Beacon and Our Patch, it feels like the Bradford 2025 team have managed it, and are committed to continuing it into the future.”
Alison also hosts regular visual arts socials and other events across the Bradford district, bringing together artists to connect and develop their careers. See our events page for what’s coming up. Outside of BPH, Alison is an artist, curator and producer with over 20 years of experience in making, and collaborating with communities, on projects, in exhibitions, at festivals and with museums and galleries.
Alison’s artistic practice includes drawing, painting, mixed media, textile and performance. She has created thread installations for corporate customers, sold her work online and at exhibitions, collaborated with schools and communities on large-scale artworks and murals, and created a collaborative curve stitching project, Threads, that explored the relationship between making and conversation. She recently worked as a producer/curator on Bradford Art Show and Print Collection for OUR TURN Bradford’s Visual Arts Festival. She is a co-founder of HATCH, a Community Interest Company that works with people to empower their creative journey so that they are more connected to, and proud of, themselves, each other, and their place. She leads for HATCH on the Art Doctors project, which playfully breaks down barriers to participation in contemporary art, and explores the positive role of creativity in all our lives.
Before setting up HATCH, Alison worked within the arts and mental health sphere with Leeds MIND at Inkwell and as Programme Co-ordinator at Love Art Festival. She also worked as a producer with Unlimited Theatre, touring shows to festivals and other outdoor events, including headline events for the Manchester Science Festival.
“When I first started in the role at BPH in March 2023, there were lots of brilliant visual artists and organisations doing great work in the district, but there seemed to be a lack of wider infrastructure and connection to support that work. Our needs-led approach has provided a framework that has driven rapid and impressive progress and connection in the visual arts community.
I’ve also fallen more than a little bit in love with Bradford over the past three years! In particular the generosity, friendliness and enthusiasm of the artists here; I feel very warmly welcomed.”
You can read Alison’s Bradford Visual Arts Reports here.
