Bradford's Kirkgate Shopping Centre becomes backdrop for exhibition ahead of demolition
Kirkgate Shopping Centre is due to be flattened next year to make way for the “City Village” scheme
A SHOPPING centre that has been earmarked for demolition has become the backdrop for an exhibition of work by an acclaimed photographer.
Kirkgate Shopping Centre is due to be flattened next year to make way for the “City Village” scheme that will see hundreds of new homes built in the city centre.
But before the Bradford Council owned building goes, it will be part of a major new art exhibition as part of Bradford’s City of Culture year.
Hardy and Free will see photographs of Yorkshire women in the countryside in and around the Bradford District.
The photos were taken by award winning Bradford based photographer Carolyn Mendelsohn, and are of 12 “extraordinary local women” including farmers, artists, swimmers, athletes and gardeners.
The huge images were being installed on the side of the 20th century brutalist building on Friday ahead of the exhibition’s official launch on Thursday.
Passers by watched as workers on aerial platforms unfurled the huge photographs to put them in place ahead of the exhibition’s opening.
Ms Mendelsohn began the series of photographs in 2023, and set out to explore the links between the natural world and women in Yorkshire.
The collection of images was originally commissioned by the Bronte Parsonage Museum – inspired by the Brontës’ own relationship with the land around Haworth.
The name of the exhibition comes from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, and the quote: “I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free…’
Now for Bradford 2025 she has expanded the project for Bradford 2025 with new photographs – all printed to huge scale.
Audio interviews and recordings made with many of the women featured in the portraits will be posted on the Bradford 2025 website when the exhibition opens.
As well as being viewable from Darley Street, the huge photographs can also be admired from the balcony at Darley Street Market.
A spokesperson for Bradford 2025 said: “Hardy and Free features farmers, artists, swimmers, athletes, adventurers and activists — diverse in background and age, but all sharing a profound emotional link with landscape. Presented at large-scale on the Kirkgate Shopping Centre, Hardy and Free invites us to consider how landscapes around us shape who we are, and how we find our place within them.”
The exhibition will run until February 2026.
The 1970s Kirkgate Centre has been earmarked for demolition for several years. An attempt to list the building, made by the 20th Century Society, was dismissed last year, with Historic England describing the building as “lacking architectural flair”.