If you’ve visited Cartwright Hall Art Gallery or City Park recently, you may well have spotted elements of ‘Garden Within a Garden’.  Our Curator of International Arts, Nilesh Mistry led on this exciting project for Bradford Museums and Galleries and agreed to write a blog for us.

He writes:

The Garden Within a Garden project has enabled the production of an engaging and thought provoking two site public art commission by internationally renowned Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi in June 2016.

These can be viewed in the Mughal Water Garden adjoining Cartwright Hall Art Gallery and the new temporary garden in Bradford City Park in the city centre.

Qureshi’s presence in the city and his journey through the commissioning process has also provided a wonderful opportunity for local artists to respond to Qureshi’s work and the World War One (WW1) centenary with the creation of new works, which can be viewed in Cartwright Hall Art Gallery.

The artists are Razwan Ul-Haq, Qashif Masud, Dipak Mistry, Rob Green, Mussarat Rahman, Zareena Bano and Christella Litras working in broad ranging media including song & music compositions, photography, calligraphy, sculpture and more.

With the WW1 centenary, war and conflict as a main strand in all their work, the creations include four lyrical compositions with music accompaniment titled Together, We Fight, We Stand, We Are by renowned artists Rob Green and Christella Litras to the wooden sculptures and carvings of newly established Qashif Masud where in the work Brotherhood his use of wood of varying species from throughout the world of varying colours and textures incorporating calligraphy is used as a metaphor for the human race to be as one.

Dipak Mistry’s photographs, Remembrance focuses on war memorials, plaques produced in commemoration of the individual sacrifices made in the Great War that are a constant in the Bradford landscape but can somewhat merge into urban surroundings and are forgotten by the passing of time.

Zareena Bano, Mussarat Rahman and Razwan Ul-Haq working with community and school groups created nine banner designs in their unique style and approach, which have pride of place in the walled garden adjoining the gallery.

There is also exciting opportunities to meet the Bradford artists who are delivering free drop-in workshops at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery over the summer which are scheduled on Sundays 12-3pm on 7, 14, 21 & 28 August and Sunday 11 September.

Please note booking is required for the 14 August workshop with . Visit the Bradford Museums website for more details

Garden Within A Garden is part of 14-18 NOW, the UK’s Arts programmed for the First World War Centenary and is a two-site public art installation.  It was Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW:WW1 Centenary Art Commissions, Bradford Museums & Galleries and Yorkshire Festival.