Gloves Off: Stories from Cultural Collections & Galleries at the University of Leeds

The Bingley Byron is the toast of the Bradford arts scene, but trouble’s brewing as he sets out his stall as an establishment rhymer. And back in the present, a descendant of the poet meets his likeness at the University of Leeds. 

Also known as The Orpheus of Bradford and The Airedale Poet, John Nicholson was a Methodist preacher and a tormented drinker, a rambler on Rombald’s Moor and a champion of industry, a co...

Grief pulls John Nicholson back to his family’s devout Methodism – for now – as The Bingley Byron turns the loss of his young bride into art that retains the power to console the bereaved. 

Also known as The Orpheus of Bradford and The Airedale Poet, John Nicholson was a Methodist preacher and a tormented drinker, a rambler on Rombald’s Moor an...

Also known as The Orpheus of Bradford and The Airedale Poet, John Nicholson was a Methodist preacher and a tormented drinker, a rambler on Rombald’s Moor and a champion of industry, a conservative and a radical, a woolsorter and a classically-inclined poet.  

He got arrested in London for arguing with a bust of Shakespeare; became a pawn in one of the great political...

How does the art world invite, or restrict, the expression of working-class identity? What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a “fugitive” from the mainstream? How might you make art outside “the system”?

The final instalment of our Curating Class series is a live recording of a panel discussion featuring six of the artists who exhibited in ‘[uz], [uz], [uz]: Artists from Working-Class Backg...

“This wasn’t an exhibition of ‘working-class art’, but an attempt to reframe working-class experience by utilising a gaze from within, bringing together a plurality of working-class voices”. 

Samantha Manton, curator of ‘Lives Less Ordinary: Working-Class Britain Re-seen' at Two Temple Place in 2025 talks about her methodologies and the decisions she made – consciously a...

“The role of an organisation is not to force the artwork to adapt to the conventions of the institution, but to adapt its methods to the needs of the artwork…

“Curating can itself become a class-conscious methodology.” 

How do curatorial practices reproduce or challenge class-based inequalities, and what practical changes might make the art world more equitable? 

Curator, researcher...

“Being faithful to the diversity of the artists involved; avoiding tropes; challenging stereotypes... Celebrating the enormous vitality and creativity of artists from working-class backgrounds...”

Exhibitions Curator at The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery Dr Laura Claveria gives a brief introduction to the process of curating the 2025-26 exhibition [uz], [uz], [uz]: Artists from Working-Class Backgrounds.

Dr Simon M...

Dr Rebecca Starr, Lecturer in History of Art in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds, gives an overview of art history’s relationship with class, which she traces back to the discipline's origins in Enlightenment philosophy.    The idea of the autonomous art object, set apart from everyday life, was still being endorsed in the mid-20th-century by critics like Clement Green...

How can art resist forgetting, or question state-endorsed histories? Can memories articulated through art enable us to think about and create possible futures? How does art enable us to understand the histories and the challenges of diaspora?

For the second of our talks on themes of the Turner Prize 2025, we're joined by Shanaz Gulzar MBE, artist and Creative Director of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture; contemporary international ...

How does art care? How do artists embody care within the creative act of making and how does their work project care in all its multiplicities, its potential ethical and moral positions? How best can art, artists and curators create space to represent and engender care for both individuals and wider communities?

Recorded at the University of Leeds shortly before Nnena Kalu was announced as the winner of the Turner Prize 2025, this ...

Take a twinkling trip back to Christmas Past with the first podcast in a new series from our 2024 Bedford Fellow Dr Ruby Rutter.

Ruby leaves the festive bustle of Leeds’ arcades behind to discover how a Victorian candlemaker harnessed the ancient association of light and magic to invent fairy lights.

Looking closely at a 19th-century advert in The John Evan Bedford Library of Furniture History, Ruby and fellow histo...