Honouring Bradford’s Print heritage, six prints will form the Bradford Print Portfolio, a specially commissioned collection that will represent the vibrant printmaking sector in Bradford throughout the OUR TURN festival. Limited editions/multiples of the prints will be sold at OUR TURN venues across the district and at two specialised national print fairs.
Each commissioned printmaker will receive:
■ £500 fee to produce a new piece of print that responds to the phrase “bold, daring and authentically Bradford.”
■ £500 contribution to the cost of producing limited editions/multiples that will be sold commercially through OUR TURN venues, online and at two national print fairs. The specific print fairs, the number of limited editions/multiples produced, and the selling price for each print will be discussed as a group after selection.
■ Mentoring and/or engagement with established print studios to support development of your commercial practice.
■ Publicity for yourself and your work.
■ Access Support Rider if needed.
Applications open: Thursday 10 July
Deadline: Monday 4 August, 12 noon
Applications are open to established printmakers or print collectives working in any print medium, and living or working in Bradford district.
We are committed to also platforming under represented groups including neurodivergent, disabled, people minoritised by race, sexuality, gender identity and class. If you would like to, you can include this information in your application.
Image: Mary Gibbons, printmaking workshop lead. Previous commission by OUR TURN
ELIGIBILITY
■ Be living or working in the Bradford District (where your workplace is related to your creative practice).
■ Have an established printmaking practice that can be evidenced through a portfolio or website.
■ Be able to work to the tight programme timetable.
■ Have a desire to develop your commercial practice.
EXPECTATIONS
■ Attend a meeting on Thursday 14 August, 5 – 7pm, with the other selected artists and with Alison McIntyre (Print Portfolio Producer) to discuss the number and retail price of editions/multiples, key dates and deadlines, and how we operate as a Print Portfolio group.
■ Create a finished piece of original print, and the agreed number of editions, by Monday 22 September.
■ Engage with mentoring or engagement with print studios to support your commercial practice. A timeline for this is to be agreed, but will most likely happen after the print deadline of 22 September.
■ Be an ambassador and promoter of the Print Portfolio and the wider OUR TURN festival.
■ Provide updates, photos, text etc to assist with promotion of work and yourself.
Submissions can be in written, audio or video format, but should address all the questions in the application form.
You will need to include:
■ Link to a or website or a portfolio that evidences your established printmaking practice.
■ A description of your printmaking practice and process, including how you would approach creating limited editions/multiples using the £500 production budget. It would be helpful, but not essential, at this stage if you were able to give a sense of how many editions/multiples you would like to produce and what price they would ideally sell at.
■ Your ideas (written and visual options) about how your work will respond to the phrase “bold, daring and authentically Bradford” – we’re looking for a good spread of work that represents printmaking and Bradford as a whole.
■ What you hope to get from mentoring and support to develop your commercial practice – we’re looking for the impact this part of the programme will have on you and your practice.
There are no word limits on your answers, but please keep them as succinct as possible. The selection panel will be reading a lot of applications!
If recorded using audio/video, your recorded application should answer all the questions indicated in the written form. Please ensure you respond to these prompts clearly.
Please also take a few minutes to complete our Equal Opportunities Form. South Square is committed to equality and diversity. To help us understand the diversity of our applicants/employees, we invite you to complete this optional form. The information you provide will be kept confidential and used for monitoring purposes only, to help us ensure we are creating an inclusive environment. It will not be linked to your application or considered during the selection process.
SUPPORT
If you would like support in completing your submission form, please email us on:
There is no such thing as a silly question – if you don’t know the answer, we can guarantee someone else doesn’t know it either! We will be hosting an online Q&A session where you can talk to the South Square team to discuss the Print Portfolio opportunity and ask us any questions.
This will be:
Tuesday 22nd July – 12:30pm – 1:30pm >
SELECTION PROCESS
SELECTION CRITERIA
We are looking for:
■ Printmakers or collectives with an established print practice, who are also looking to develop and expand their commercial practice.
■ A clear connection and response to the phrase “bold, daring and authentically Bradford”. This response doesn’t need to overtly reference Bradford as a place; we’re not necessarily looking for six similar prints of Bradford’s architecture and/or landscape (although there is certainly a place for those within the portfolio), so you can interpret the phrase in any way you wish. It might be a historical reference, an emotional response to what Bradford is or what it means to you, or even just something bold and daring. The most important thing is that you can articulate the connection and your interpretation in your application.
TIMELINE AND KEY DATES
Thurs 10th July – Applications open
Tues 22nd July – Print Portfolio Q&A Zoom – 12:30 – 1:30pm >
Mon 4th Aug – Application submission deadline – 12 noon
w/c 11th Aug – `Selected printmakers notified
Thurs 14th Aug – Print Portfolio Group Meeting – 5:00 – 7:00pm
26th Sept – 28th Jan – OUR TURN festival live.
This will be discussed as a group after selection, so that we can respond to the different print processes and their relative costs.
The intention is that the prints can be sold individually, however they will be presented as a portfolio at Cartwright Hall and other OUR TURN venues, as well as at the two national print fairs.
If your process for making editions is very costly you could choose to make fewer prints, or regard the £500 budget as a contribution towards your print costs. We will discuss this in detail at the meeting with selected printmakers on Thursday 14 August.
It’s completely up to you how you price your print, but please be aware that this is an opportunity that is probably more suited to commercial printmakers, than to fine art printmakers. The print fairs we are considering (most likely for 2026) include The Hepworth Print Fair, Manchester Art Fair and Glasgow Print Fair, where most prints are selling for below £100. At the meeting on 14th August we will discuss pricing, as well as number of editions/multiples for each print.
Artists will receive at least 33% (this is negotiable, as discussions with partners are still ongoing at time of this call out going live) of the total sales of their print throughout the period of OUR TURN (Sept 2025 to Jan 2026) and at the two national print fairs. We are aware that this is lower than a standard retail arrangement, due to some of the sales commission having to come to OUR TURN as match funds in the funding bid, on top of the usual retail sales commission. We hope that this lower commission rate is compensated somewhat by the £500 commission fee and the £500 contribution to producing the editions/multiples.
Each printmaker owns the IP for their individual print. Once the OUR TURN festival commission has finished (including sales at the two print fairs, which may take place in 2026) the printmaker is free to sell their work independently and without OUR TURN taking any commission.