BRADFORD/UK: Nigerian-born creative producer Oluwaseun Dosunmu has launched Culture Link, a community initiative in Bradford designed to bring people from different cultural backgrounds together through food, language, music, storytelling, art and live performance.
The initiative, founded through The Care Inn Centre, is intended to create informal opportunities for residents to learn about different cultures while developing social connections and encouraging greater participation in community life.
Dosunmu, a UK-based Creative Wellbeing Curator and Combined Arts Producer, said the initiative was developed in response to the growing cultural diversity of Bradford, where people from different nationalities and backgrounds live within the same communities but may have limited opportunities to interact meaningfully.
“Bradford is becoming increasingly culturally rich, with people from different countries and backgrounds making the city their home,” Dosunmu said. “But living alongside one another does not always mean that we understand one another.”
He said Culture Link was designed to provide a setting where people could meet, ask questions, share experiences and learn about cultures directly from members of those communities.
“For me, culture is not something we should simply observe. It is something we can participate in,” he said. “Through food, language, music, storytelling and performance, we can discover the things that connect us while developing a better understanding of our differences.”
The first Culture Link gathering featured a programme of cultural exchange and creative activities, including a live performance by Bradford-based Afrobeat and Afro-hip-hop artiste and rapper Q-Dee.
Dosunmu said involving local creatives was central to the initiative because artists could provide another way of bringing people together.
“Bradford has incredible creative talent, and Culture Link gives us an opportunity to put local artists at the centre of community experiences,” he said. “Music can sometimes communicate what conversation cannot.”
The programme also featured Sheilla from Kenya, who introduced participants to the Swahili language and shared experiences of her Kenyan and Koyo cultural background.
Her participation gave attendees an opportunity to learn about the culture directly from someone with personal experience of it, rather than through assumptions or second-hand accounts.
The gathering also explored cultural diversity within Nigeria, with Bunmi, a Nigerian professional of Yoruba heritage who is married to an Igbo man and previously lived in Kaduna, sharing her experiences of navigating different cultural identities within the country.
Her contribution broadened the discussion beyond differences between nationalities, highlighting the cultural diversity that exists within Nigeria itself.
“The Culture Link idea is brilliant, novel and very timely,” Bunmi said. “I had the opportunity to share my background and where I came from.”
She said initiatives of the kind could help people understand one another better and challenge misconceptions about different communities.
Food provided another point of interaction during the gathering, with participants tasting Ofada rice and its accompanying sauce, some of them for the first time.
Dosunmu said such ordinary experiences were part of the wider idea behind Culture Link, arguing that meaningful community relationships could develop through simple activities such as sharing a meal and exchanging stories.
“I made new friends, learnt about different tribes and cultures, learnt some Swahili and tasted Ofada rice and sauce for the first time,” he said. “These may sound like small experiences, but they are exactly what Culture Link is about.”
Beyond cultural exchange, the initiative is also linked to Dosunmu’s wider work exploring the relationship between creativity, social connection and wellbeing.
The Care Inn Centre, through which Culture Link was established, brings together arts, culture and wellbeing through participatory programmes. Dosunmu’s other creative projects include Sip & Paint, ArtWell, Rhythm Reset, Rest Contest, De-Stress for Artists and PaintConverse, while the Care Inn Global Creative Wellbeing Convention is also being developed.
Dosunmu said Culture Link would seek to address issues such as social isolation, limited interaction between communities and cultural misunderstanding by creating spaces where people actively participate rather than simply attend events as spectators.
He said his long-term vision was for Culture Link to become a platform where participants could encounter new forms of culture while developing relationships with people outside their usual social circles.
“I want someone to leave Culture Link having discovered an artist, learnt a new word, tasted a new food, heard a story they had never heard before and, most importantly, met someone they might not otherwise have spoken to,” he said.
Culture Link is founded and curated by Dosunmu through The Care Inn Centre in Bradford, with its activities focused on using cultural and creative participation as a means of strengthening community connections.
