2025 – A Review of the Year
2025 was a big festival year for WOVEN, with a theme of connecting culture, reflecting the festival’s role in bringing communities together through the universal language of textiles. The festival saw more than 120 events happening across the whole of Kirklees, with community organisations, venues, local artists, schools and the textile industry coming together to celebrate the district’s rich textile history and contemporary scene. More than 26,000 visitors enjoyed hands-on workshops, exhibitions, installations, creative gatherings and curated events.
The Red Dress mesmerised against the beautiful backdrop of Oakwell Hall and was seen by more than 3,750 visitors from all around the UK.
5,000 visitors joined us for the joyful finale at the Dewsbury Mash Up, in partnership with The Arcade Dewsbury, for a fabulous day-long celebration of textiles, food and fun for everyone.
Watch the WOVEN 2025 film.
“WOVEN 2025 has once again shown the incredible power of creativity to bring people together. From the awe-inspiring Red Dress installation at Oakwell Hall to the many community-led workshops and exhibitions, every corner of Kirklees has been alive with colour, craft and community spirit. As Mayor, I’m immensely proud of how our district has celebrated its rich textile heritage while inspiring future generations. Thank you to everyone who made this festival such a vibrant success.”
“Reclaim the night is a fantastic opportunity to get everybody together to raise awareness about the safety on the streets for women and girls. I truly believe that if you’re talking about safety for women and girls, you’re talking about it for everybody. So it’s not just about women and girls coming together on that night, it’s about everybody coming together to have responsibility for the same action”
Nat Walton, HATCH Director and Labour Councillor for Wakefield East Ward
Alison is now based in Bradford and working as Visual Arts Instigator at Bradford Producing Hub since 2023. She has been heavily involved with Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture, supporting visual artists and organisations through her role BPH, and also working on specific projects. On Yer Bike was funded through the Bradford 2025 Creative Communities and enabled us to support Capital of Cycling on a project that told the cycling stories of under-represented communities. DRAW! was a campaign, supported by David Hockney, that encouraged anyone to have a go at drawing. Alison supported Bradford artists to make call-to-action films that demonstrated accessible and fun drawing activities – and of course Art Doctors got in on the action too! Finally Alison has worked as a producer on the Bradford Art Show, an open submission exhibition curated by Dr Kerry Harker with 105 artists and 124 pieces of work. The exhibition represents a snapshot of visual arts in Bradford and we hope has been managed with a level of care (whether selected artists or not) that, as far as is possible, nourishes and develops the visual arts community, rather than putting artists in competition with each other.
It’s been a busy year, during which we have also been working with Mark Hollander on company development, so are looking forward to what 2026 brings us!