UNDERCLIFFE Cemetery has an artist in residence to uncover stories about women buried at the site who have been forgotten.

Debbie Sharp, who has been researching and rediscovering the art collections of Cartwright Hall Gallery to inform new works and interventions, is to create multimedia and sound artworks between now and November inspired by the women in a project called Hidden Suffrage.

"It would be great to mark the 1918 Representation of the People Act and the Suffragettes," said Ms Sharp.

"It will be great if this will uncover some of their stories."

Ms Sharp, 47, will create multimedia artworks, particularly using sound, responding to what she finds on the site, Bradford's 'City of the Dead'.

One of the women who will inspire Ms Sharp is the Bradford-born suffragette and trade unionist Julia Varley OBE, who died in 1952 and who she discovered is buried at the cemetery in an overlooked grave overgrown by grass.

She said: “It's women like Julia Varley that I want to uncover and bring to the forefront of the cemetery to celebrate their lives.

"Julie Varley has recently been given a blue plaque at her former home in Birmingham but here in Bradford where she was born and then later died she is less remembered.

"She was fundamental in workers and women’s rights which earned her an OBE.”

Julia Varley was born in 1871 in Bradford working fropm the age of 12 in a mill. She moved to Birmingham and went on to establish a branch of the National Federation of Women Workers at the Cadbury factory at Bournville.

She was made OBE in 1931 and in 2013, she was commemorated by the erection of a blue plaque at her former home in Bournville.

There will be a series of events inviting the public to meet the artist and be part of the project including public workshop to create memory cards to inspirational women of Bradford who have died, these will form part of a new art installation in the cemetery.

Ms Sharp is also hoping members of the public will be able to contribute to the project by providing biographical details of the hidden lives she finds.

She will be based in the cemetery all week but on Wednesdays and Saturdays she will be able to be contacted at the bandstand on the historic grade II-listed 23-acre site.

She now lives in Hebden Bridge but said the location of her latest work is particularly apt as she used to be "a bit of a goth" and explored the cemetery when growing up.

The residency will conclude with a one-off evening of art and live performance in November with new site-specific works of sound and light bringing the cemetery to life.

The public are invited to keep up to date with the project at the artist's website https://www.debbie-sharp.com #hiddensuffrage. The artist residency and Hidden Suffrage is supported by Arts Council National Lottery Project Grant, Undercliffe Cemetery and Cartwright Hall.