A photographic exhibition exploring the practise of cryonics – freezing a human body after death in the hope that scientific advances may one day bring it back to life – is premiering in Bradford.

The Prospect of Immortality, by young British photographer Murray Ballard, includes an image of a body wrapped in a sleeping-bag moments before being frozen.

The exhibition, at Impressions Gallery, is the result of five years of international investigation and unprecedented access and offers a fascinating photographic insight into the process of cryonics.

Mr Ballard’s images capture the tiny but dedicated international cryonics community, from the seaside town of Peacehaven to the high-tech laboratories of Arizona and the rudimentary facilities of Kriorus, near Moscow.

There are 150 ‘patients’ worldwide stored permanently in liquid nitrogen, with a further thousand people signed up for cryonics after death.

While people signing up for the practise are often ridiculed for their views, Mr Ballard, 27, takes an objective stance, allowing the viewer to consider the ethics of cryonics and to decide whether those taking part are caught up in a fantasy world or are actually furthering genuine scientific innovation.

Alongside fascinating representations of the technical processes, he portrays some of the people involved, offering a human dimension to his account of the quest for immortality.

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