Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1955 Rawalpindi, Pakistan

Year of Migration to the UK: 1964

Biography

Nudrat Afza was born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, 1955. In 1965 her mother came to Britain with her three youngest children, leaving Afza's three older siblings behind. Afza says that she ‘lived a very sheltered life; we came from a large family so we did a lot of housework and cooking. I missed out on my education because new arrivals to Britain went to immigrant classes/centres that separated me from mainstream schooling, as well as prejudice, streaming and racism in the education system’ (Park, 2018). She studied nursery nursing and social work as a mature student. Having no formal art training, she started taking pictures by chance when she picked up someone’s camera. This engagement began on her doorstep, as she photographed people and places in Manningham where she lived. The Pavilion, Leeds, a women’s photography organisation, became a space for Afza to further her self-education. Here she participated in the 5 Women Project (1988). Nominated by the Pavilion, Afza’s Girl with Doll was exhibited in the Sun Life Photography Awards, 1987 at the former National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, which increased her visibility as a photographer (Park, 2018). In 1989 she was Photographer in Residence at Huddersfield Art Gallery, leading to a solo exhibition on the history of South Asian communities in Kirklees (1990), the same year she featured in In Focus with Mumtaj Karimjee, Zarina Bhimji and Pradipta Das, at Horizon Gallery, London.

Afza has stated that she tries ‘to build relationships with the people in my photographs, and be sensitive rather than intrusive’ (notjusthockney website). ‘My aim is to concentrate on very simple but strong and positive images, because I feel that Black people have already had enough negative exposure’ (Not Just Hockney website). In the same year, her work was included in Fabled Territories: New Asian Photography in Britain, Leeds City Art Gallery, Leeds and touring. Afza was subsequently involved in small exhibitions in northern England. Her photography was never a full-time endeavour, but a sporadically-engaged hobby (interview, BURU, 2022). In 1992, she worked on a collaborative project with artist, Professor Conrad Atkinson, entitled Zones of Gold: for Emily, exhibited at Cartwright Hall, Bradford.

Afza was selected for the Year of the Artist Award, June 2000 – May 2001, a 20 day commission, based at the Jewish Museum, Manchester. She was quoted as stating that the reaction within her own Muslim community was positive: ‘There is a respect among Muslims for the Jewish faith as they are people of the book. Jewish people came to Britain in the 19th century; then again in the 20th century fleeing persecution in Europe. Of course, to offer support to new immigrants is part of their way of life’ (Jeffay, 1999). The exhibition, One Hundred Years of Cheetham and Broughton was shown at the Jewish Museum, Manchester, before moving to Crumpsall Library, Abraham Moss Centre, finishing at the city's Cathedral between (2000-01). In 2012, Afza took a series of photographs at the Kenmore Salon, Toller Lane, Bradford, capturing the owner’s final months before retirement; he had spent his entire working life in that salon. The Salon series was shown at Gallery II, University of Bradford. The following year, Afza began photographing female supporters of Bradford City Football Club, culminating in the City Girls exhibition at the National Science and Media Museum in 2018. In 2019, Afza photo-documented Bradford's only remaining synagogue in Manningham, its members, friends and physical structure, recording the decline of the Jewish community and the dwindling congregation. Afza juxtaposed these pictures with photographs of an empty Orthodox synagogue in Bradford which has since been demolished, commenting that the ‘Jewish people are such an important part of Bradford’s history’ (Clayton. 2019). A small selection of these photographs, titled Kehillah, was first exhibited at the Saltaire Festival held at Salts Mill in 2019, which received press coverage and featured on BBC Radio 4's Sketches. The second showing at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in 2020 presented the complete series. In 2019, Afza exhibited alongside Ian Beesley, Shy Burhan, John Cade, Phil Jackson and Justin Leeming in the Local People on the Big Screen projection at Centenary Square, Bradford. Between 2016-21 Afza photographed her younger sister, Sairah Mirza, throughout various stages of breast cancer treatment (Clayton, 2021). Several photographs from this moving series, Shadow and Light were displayed in the exhibition, Cancer Revolution: Science, Innovation and Hope held at the Science Museum, London between 2022–23. In 2022 a collaborative work with Luca Rutherford, You Heard Us, presented 13 large-scale images on billboards around the University of Bradford campus as a public art installation.

Nudrat Afza lives and works in Bradford. She is a full-time carer for her adult daughter, who has learning disabilities, a life-threatening liver condition and is currently awaiting a liver transplant (BURU, 2022). Her work is currently held in the UK public domain by the National Media Museum, Bradford (Science Museum Group).

Related books

'Focusing on Bradford's Struggle for Survival', Jewish Chronicle, 13 September 2019, p. 64
Gillian Park, The Pavilion Women's Photographer Center 1983-1993: Deciphering an 'Incomplete' Feminist Project (PhD thesis, University of Leeds, 2018)
Gen Doy, Black Visual Culture: Modernity and Postmodernity (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000), p. 228
Our Correspondent, 'Photographic Displays', Jewish Chronicle, 17 November 2000, p. 16
Joy Wolfe, 'Museum Wins Lottery Funding', Jewish Chronicle, 25 August 2000, p. 12
Estelle Beninson, 'Centenary Project', Jewish Chronicle, 7 April 2000, p. 26
Nathan Jeffay, 'Museum Awarded £3,000 for Ethnic Project', Jewish Chronicle, 24 December 1999, p. 14
Melanie Klein and Liz Ward eds., Recordings: A Select Bibliography of Contemporary African, Afro-Caribbean and Asian British Art (London: Iniva, 1996), pp. 20, 27-28
Maxine Walter, 'Fabled Territories: Photographer Maxine Walter Discusses the Touring Exhibition of South Asian Photography in Britain', Women's Art Magazine, January-February 1991, p. 22

Public collections

National Science and Media Museum

Related organisations

Huddersfield Art Gallery (Artist in Residence)
Yorkshire Arts (Grant recipient)

Selected exhibitions

Cancer Revolution: Science, Innovation and Hope, Science Museum, London (2022-23)
You Heard Us, thirteen large scale images with Luca Rutherfold, University of Bradford campus, Bradford (2022)
Local People, with Ian Beesley, Shy Burhan, John Cade, Phil Jackson and Justin Leeming, City Park, Bradford (2019)
Kehillah: Photographs of Bradford Synagogue, The Boardrooms, Salts Mill, Saltaire, Bradford (2019)
City Girls, National Science and Media Museum, Bradford (2018)
The Salon, Gallery II, University of Bradford (2012)
Cheetham and Broughton 2000, Crumpsall Library, Abraham Moss Centre, Manchester (2000-01)
One Hundred Years of Cheetham and Broughton, Jewish Museum, Manchester (2000)
Midnight Hour, Gallery II, University of Bradford (1997)
Zones of Gold: For Emily, with Conrad Atkinson, Cartwright Hall, Bradford (1992)
In Focus, exhibition 2 with Mumtaj Karimjee, Zarina Bhimji and Pradipta Das, Horizon Gallery, London (1990)
Solo exhibition on the history of South Asian communities in Kirklees, Huddersfield Art Gallery (1990)
Fabled Territories: New Asian Photography in Britain, City Art Gallery, Leeds, and touring (1989)
5 Women, The Pavilion, Leeds (1988)

Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Nudrat Afza]

Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.

Nudrat Afza photographer