A MAJOR new exhibition looking at the pioneering World War I photography of some pioneering women will go on display at a Bradford gallery next month.

No Man’s Land Will open at Impressions Gallery in City Park on October 7, and run until the end of the year before it tours venues across the UK.

It features rarely-seen female perspectives on the First World War, featuring images taken by women who worked as nurses, ambulance drivers, and official photographers.

The exhibition is being accompanied by a project by the gallery’s New Focus group. The £35,000 Heritage Lottery Funded project saw the group visit wartime archives to study artefacts and records and use that information to create a book about women’s role in the war. The work will be available during the exhibition, and also used in schools.

Highlights of the exhibition will include never-before-exhibited frontline images by nurses Mairi Chisholm and Florence Farmborough, as well as photographs by Olive Edis, the UK’s first female official war photographer.

Dr Pippa Oldfield, head of programme and curator of the exhibition, said: “Most people think of war photography as images of male soldiers, made by photojournalists in the combat zone. However, the work in No Man’s Land shows many other ways to photograph war, offering different viewpoints by women who have historically been excluded.

“I hope visitors will be moved and surprised by what they see.”

The exhibition also features new work by contemporary photographer and former soldier Alison Baskerville. She said: “It’s a privilege to be exhibiting alongside such inspiring and fascinating women. Despite the distance of a hundred years, their images are still so raw and powerful.

“As someone who has served in Afghanistan, I recognise the challenges of being a woman in a war zone, and the importance of sharing that story”.

After the premiere of the exhibition at Impressions, No Man’s Land will go on to be shown at Bristol Cathedral, The Turnpike in Leigh, and Bishop Auckland Town Hall in 2018.