Two Bradford-born creatives have been awarded money from the council’s new Large Grants scheme that gives projects up to £15,000 to promote art, history, and culture across the district.
Lawyer and author Abda Khan, 52, who was born in Bradford but now lives in the Midlands has teamed up with local poet Sharena Lee Satti, who is in her thirties, to deliver a digital five-week creative writing scheme that will explore childhood memories of Bradford from the 70s which will culminate in both a digital and in-person event where the creatives will get to perform their projects live.
The project will begin in mid-October and will be delivered via Zoom. The two writers are still in the final process of selecting writing from across Bradford to take part. The final events are set to be performed before Christmas this year, with the live event being primed for the Kala Sangam building, although nothing has been finalised yet.
Ms Khan said: “Sharena and I have worked with each other for a while. Over lockdown, we organised a series of open mic nights together, but we actually haven’t met in person yet, so this is going to be our first time.
“Jumping the Middings came about after a conversation with Sharena about our childhood. She mentioned that there was funding available from the council so we decided to apply for it to be able to deliver sessions that will be able to explore memories of the seventies, both happy and nostalgic memories, and more difficult ones.”
The project has been named after one of Ms Khan’s favourite childhood memories, where she and her friends would jump over the back of coal sheds along terraced houses, something that is colloquially known as “Jumping the middings”. Ms Khan said: “In the 70s, jumping along the back of the coal sheds in between terraced houses was our entertainment, some were taller than others which made it exciting. This is worlds apart from the experience that young people have today.”
The project is important to Ms Khan and Ms Satti because it provides an opportunity for other creatives to document and preserve childhood memories of Bradford and gives people who are fifty and over a chance to be involved in live art, a demographic of people who are “often overlooked when it comes to creative writing and live art”, says Ms Khan,
She went on to say: “This project will give people who are my age and older the ability to be involved in the creative sector in Bradford. People who are over fifty are often overlooked when it comes to funding and providing opportunities for their artwork to be shown. We are going to change that with this project.
“We are going to explore all types of memories of growing up in Bradford in the 70s. Some will be happy, some might be difficult, but young people need to know what it was like because the world has changed massively since then.”
Ms Khan who has worked as a lawyer for over two-and-a-half decades recently got into writing around six years ago, with her first novel, Stained, published in 2016. The book is a psychological thriller about a British-Pakistani woman called Selina who was raped by a family friend and must deal with issues of dishonour and shame, a sensitive topic within the South Asian and Muslim communities.
She said: “Of course, the cultural norms of today are not the same cultural norms that we had back then. It is not just the experience of being South Asian that has changed, but just generally as a woman.
“Women weren’t expected to have careers as men did. They would work to pay the bills, but we were not expected to have careers. We were expected to settle down and have children.”
Ms Satti who grew up in the 90s but is using her expertise in poetry and presenting live reading performances to deliver this project. She said: “This project is an opportunity for us to hear and document other people’s stories of growing up.
“We don’t usually hear these types of stories which is why it is very important that we get people’s voices out there.”
Promoting South Asian voices is a particular concern to Ms Satti she says “a lot of people in the South Asian community do not get these types of opportunities, or do not think that they are for them. Through this project, Abda and I can be role models for people in the community as it shows people in the community that they can seize these opportunities.”
Giving advice to young people who want to enter the creative industry, Ms Satti said: “You need to be authentic to yourself and to your art. You need to share it out with the world.”
During lockdown at the start of the year, Ms Satti and fellow Keighley-based poet Simon Pickles set up Spoke, a non-profit community-based organisation that brings together emerging and established poets and performance artists to reach new people and places with poetry and spoken word. They deliver spoken word workshops in various settings across education, rehabilitation, and corporate sectors. They also host poetry and spoken word events throughout the year, in literary festivals and events such as World Book Day and National Poetry Day.
Bradford Council’s Large Arts, Culture and Heritage Grant Fund, which can award up to £15,000 of funding per project, has been designed following the launch of Bradford’s new cultural strategy, ‘Culture is Our Plan’.
This is the first of two opportunities to apply for the new funds which will support new projects, events and other cultural activities that will engage communities from across the whole of the district and promote the district to wider audiences. The programme is open twice a year with the second opportunity closing on 26 January 2022.
The award for this round is a total of £51,500 to eight projects that will deliver initiatives across the Bradford district over the next 6 months.
Councillor Sarah Ferriby, Bradford Council’s Executive Member for Healthy People and Places said: “We are delighted to be able to announce the latest round of successful bids for funding from our grants programme.
“Bradford district has such a vivid and diverse creative sector which has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, so it’s great that we are able to support these cultural projects to engage local communities from across the whole of the district.”
