Women in Uniform is a striking exhibition of images by Shipley-based photographer Shy Burhan.
The Arts Council England-funded project, presented at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford, is a celebration of the working women who contribute to different professions and sectors that comprise the many facets of employment in the 21st century, including those industries that have and continue to be domains dominated by men.
The photographs are also a tribute to women of the global majority that have formed minority communities in England.
These people have paid into it the nation’s taxation and healthcare systems, and actively participated in the formation of the multicultural British society we experience today.
The exhibition blows stereotypes to dust while revealing stories that haven’t before emerged from their respective industries. Tahira Bibi, a Pakistani train driver for Northern Rail, is often mistaken for a guard or a conductor.
While the project presents working women across England, many are drawn locally from Bradford district, including mother and daughter Sarah Lin and Hannah Hu, the latter being a British-Chinese singer-songwriter who has been described by Scottish musician Bobby Gillespie as “a modern-day torch singer”.
She has performed with the likes of The Specials and Primal Scream (the band fronted by Gillespie) while being a singer-songwriter in her own right.
Burhan is also from Bradford. As a teenager she attended school very close to Lister Park, where Cartwright Hall is located, and recalls repeated visits during her sixth form free periods, never knowing that in the future her own photographs would be seen by Bradford’s communities.
The title’s theme of uniforms extends towards uniformity – in the construction of the portraits and the presentation of the photographs. Each backdrop is a starry sky dramatically tinged in the favourite colour of the sitter. The mounts that edge each portrait are cut-out as starbursts.
The images are hung on chains suspended from wooden blocks engraved with star shapes. These elements of presentation contribute to the celestial context Burhan conceived, in which the participating women are elevated to goddess.
Photographs in galleries are usually displayed behind glass in structured frames or mounted on panels.
Burhan’s approach breaks with this convention and shows her willingness to collaborate, on this occasion with an artisanal maker, which has created an opportunity to showcase another creative individual’s skill. Without glazing there are no reflections for the eye to contend with.
The exhibition is well-lit, in a space that could be unrecognisable to regular visitors to Cartwright Hall. The architectural features of the ground floor gallery are masked by white panels that offer a stripped back, white-cube experience in the purpose-built late Victorian art gallery, which opened at the start of 20th century.
Complementing the contemporary feel of the space and the photographs on show, the exhibition labels are in a font style and size that can be easily read, providing the bare details that the audience need to know – the sitter’s name and their job title.
This simplicity, and the clarity of information provided, reveals so much while encouraging the audience to look again at each photograph and consider the uniform worn by the participant.
Some women are clearly wearing the gear their role or faith prescribes, from surgical scrubs to the hijab or a hard-hat and hi-vis together with steel toe-caps or jodhpurs.
Others who can be more selective about their choice of workwear demonstrate the imagination that goes into the choices women make before facing each working day. From Stylish saris, suits or skirts, they are all worn with professional dignity.
One corner of the gallery brings the exhibition interpretation together with a selfie-space and activity area. In a film commissioned to accompany the show, a selection of interviews Burhan carried out with each of the participating women sheds light and offers insight on the ambitions, choices, decisions and motivations to pursue their particular professions.
Here, a display of exhibition panels also present nine portraits together with a quote directly from a handful of the 84 subjects addressing a range of subjects, including those of female role models and heroes.
Charu Vallabhbhai is an independent writer and curator
Shy Burhan: Women In Uniform is at Cartwright Hall ,Bradford, until 12 May
