Routes to Roots – A South Asian Exhibition

Step into Bradford City Library and discover an exhibition that is more than something to look at – it’s something to journey through.

Routes to Roots is a site-specific exhibition across the library space, inviting you to pause, explore, and uncover powerful stories of migration, home, and identity.

Created by Maya Productions with women and young people from Bradford, Sheffield, and Croydon since 2022, this celebratory showcase brings together textiles, visual art works, poetry, and film.

From embroidered scarves and block-printed runners to chalked poetry on bookcases and windows, the library will hold fragments of lived experience infused with an eclectic, colourful visual style.

The exhibition highlights work developed through participatory workshops at WomenZone, Bradford, since 2022. You’ll find:

• A collaboratively produced embroidered scarf reflecting the relationships between daughters and their mothers
• Intricate artworks exploring identity and coming of age
• A salwar kameez celebrating empowerment and strength
• Large-scale collaborative hand-print and block-printed artworks
• Three original bookworks showcasing the project in each city

And you are invited to add your own voice — tie a tag to the ever-developing story-tree. Share your experience of home, migration, or your sense of identity as part of the story-tree that has travelled with the exhibition, blooming with old and new histories from Croydon and Sheffield, and now continuing in Bradford. Or simply linger with the works and the stories they carry themselves.

Special thanks to WomenZone, Bradford City Library, Bradford Arts Centre, and West Yorkshire Archives.

Date: 6 October to 1 November

Time: Open Monday to Saturday during library hours

• Monday, Friday and Saturday: 9am to 5pm
• Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday: 9am to 7pm

Where: Bradford City Library