In 2021, Bradford Literature Festival launched a ground-breaking international project working in collaboration with Adab Festival, Pakistan. Titled Producers of the Future: From Keighley to Karachi, the project developed female talent and leadership in the arts and culture through a digital exchange and development programme.
The programme brought together 10 women from diverse and disadvantaged communities in Bradford and in Pakistan, and equipped them with skills and connections to develop and curate dynamic creative projects for diverse audiences, both online and in the real world. They were also given the opportunity to put this learning into practice by collaborating over 6 months to curate and produce a series of online events for Bradford Literature Festival’s winter strand, Words in the Winter.
The project deepened the historic links between Bradford and Pakistan by developing an international partnership between Bradford Literature Festival and Adab Festival in Karachi. The festivals share a similar ethos since both were founded and are led by women – Syima Aslam (Bradford Literature Festival) and Ameena Saiyid (Adab Festival). These inspirational leaders are passionate about the education and empowerment of women, and are dedicated to creating opportunities for the next generation of female creatives.
The programme was innovative for its ambition to address the gap in the talent pipeline in the UK creative industries, where in both the UK and Pakistan, women of Pakistani heritage are vastly under-represented, particularly in leadership, curatorial and managerial roles.
The project was supported by the British Council Digital Collaboration Fund, which supports UK and overseas cultural partnerships to develop digitally innovative ways of collaborating.
Participants collaborated to curate and produce a series of 5 digital events, showcased via the Bradford Literature Festival website. These were:
- Where are all the White Voices?
- On a Scale of One to Muslim, How Sufi are you?
- Memory of Places
- Breaking Musical Boundaries
- How do we Talk about Loss and Grief?
The project also included a pre-recorded event where participants could introduce themselves and ask questions to mentors, Syima Aslam and Ameena Saiyid, about their own journeys to becoming festival directors.
You can watch our series of events in our playlist below:
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