In early 2024, Sam was appointed as Curator-in-residence for the Transforming Cities Fund in Bradford. The residency involved understanding BD25’s City of Culture programme & the Bradford Metropolitan District Council’s public realm & cultural operations. Seeking to find moments for cross organisational collaboration, identifying gaps, and proposing creative interventions for Bradford’s public spaces. 

Sam spent 6 months working across the two organisations identifying opportunities for collaboration across their parallel programmes of activity. This resulted in several strands of work that proposed opportunities to utilise the BD25 programme to test process and methodologies for producing public art and creative placemaking. This included a pilot project with People Powered Press which will see a text piece developed with community groups in Shipley embedded in the new market development, and consultation on the commissioning structure for headline project: Wild Uplands, which will see 4 new major public art commissions in 2025.