An exhibition space in Bradford is to be transformed into a boxing gym, complete with a ring, for a project highlighting women’s role in the sport.

Bradford is the first place in Britain to host Girls In The Ring by photographer Lee Karen Stow,who trained with female boxers.

The exhibition, a collaboration with Bradford Boxing Academy, marks the International Olympic Committee’s decision to include women’s amateur boxing in the 2012 tournament.

Miss Stow, of Hull, became interested in women’s boxing working in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Photographing the country’s female boxing team training for qualifying rounds for the 2012 Olympics, she found members fighting with “energy, force and passion”, despite facing discrimination and oppression, malaria, a lack of basic equipment, no funding and the death of their team leader.

Back home, Miss Stow joined a boxing gym and trained with female boxers for six months. “Unlike professional boxing which relies on sheer brute force, amateur boxing is about scoring points and tactics,” she said. “It’s about discipline, diet, concentration, technique, dedication, respect for your opponent.

“Physically, it exhausted me but I became hooked on trying to capture the passion, energy and motion of boxing, and grew ever more curious at why these girls take to the ring.”

Girls in the Ring documents her visit to Sierra Leone, and to Florida to photograph Barbara Buttrick, 82, the world’s first women’s professional boxing champion. Known as the ‘Mighty Atom’, at just 4ft 11ins, she is the only woman inducted into the Florida Boxing Hall of Fame, alongside the likes of Mohammed Ali.

The exhibition runs at Handmade in Bradford, an arts retail and exhibition space run by arts development agency Fabric. It will open with a special event involving sparring demonstrations from female boxers including Bradford boxer Saira Tabasum, chosen as one of Yorkshire’s Olympic torch bearers, who will carry the flame through Brighouse next month.

“According to the Amateur Boxing Association of England there are approximately 16,000 females aged 16 and over participating in boxing,” said Fabric’s creative programme manager Ann Rutherford.

“Female boxers are schoolgirls, mothers, hairdressers, solicitors, students. They box to keep fit or lose weight. Some box for confidence and to build self-esteem. Some box for self-defence or to let off steam. And some box because they are good and want to win.”

  • Girls in the Ring, The Female Boxers of Yorkshire runs at Hand Made, Tyrrel Street, Bradford, from June 8 to July 28. The special opening event is on Friday, June 15.