About the Archive
Bradford Family Album
Bradford Family Album is a nationally-important archive, bringing together an extensive collection of family photographs collected from diverse communities across the Bradford district.
From wide-lapelled 1970s wedding celebrations to garage-smoked Latvian meats, the photographs capture personal milestones, cultural traditions, and everyday moments of connection. This living archive is a collective record of how people have preserved heritage, adapted customs, and shaped new ones in the process of making Bradford their home.
The archive has been developed by Impressions Gallery and their Young People’s Collective New Focus: Bradford Young Curators. Throughout 2025, Bradford Young Curators worked closely with groups and individuals to hear stories and digitise photographs as well as submitting their own family stories and capturing those of others. This living archive will continue to grow, and the photographs collected so far are the beginning of this journey.
Bradford Family Album is curated and produced by Impressions Gallery and New Focus: Bradford Young Curators. Commissioned by Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture.
Building the archive
From spending time with community groups, to receiving specialist mentoring from archivists, curators, historians and photographers, Bradford Young Curators have built an archive which will preserve personal histories for future generations.
So far the young curators have worked with groups and organisations including African Caribbean Wellbeing Café; Bradford Latvian Club; Eesti Kodu [Estonian Club]; Highfield Community Association; Khidmat Centre; Polish Parish Club; The Anchor Project; and Ukrainian Club.
New Focus:
Bradford Young Curators
The Bradford Young Curators are Amina Ahmed, Zarah Ashraf, Louie Haslam-Chance, Esther Hill, Keyhan Modaressi, Ramlah Qureshi, Gyula Papp, Lauren Waldron and Mia Wilson.
Bradford Young Curators are a diverse group of aspiring creative professionals, part of Impressions Gallery’s nationally-acclaimed youth programme, New Focus. Over an 18-month period, the group received guidance from Impressions and a cohort of mentors, including photographers, curators and archivists, in order to develop the Bradford Family Album archive and the exhibition Make Yourself at Home.
The young curators took part in all aspects of the project working with communities to collect archival images, liaising with artists on the production of commissioned work, and steering the design of the exhibition and archive.
Project Mentors
Bradford Young Curators were guided by a diverse team of mentors to develop Bradford Family Album and the exhibition Make Yourself at Home: Stories from Bradford.
The Project Mentors are:
Mahnoor Akhlaq, Multimedia Producer
Usmaan Arshad, Filmmaker and former New Focus member
Angela Brown, Curator and Producer
Anand Chhabra, Photographer and Director, Apna Heritage Archive
Emily Coghlan, Photographer and former New Focus member
Brian Liddy, Photography Archivist
Anne McNeill, Director and Curator, Impressions Gallery
Jennifer Sobol, New Focus Manager, Impressions Gallery
Maryam Wahid, Head of Programme and Outreach, Tasweer Photography Festival
Visit the Exhibition
Make Yourself at Home: Stories from Bradford is on show at Impressions Gallery from 13 September to 20 December 2025.
Plan your visit