Nudrat Afza

Afza was born in Rawalpindi in 1955; she moved to Bradford in 1964. In 1986 Yorkshire Arts awarded her a grant to document the Bangladeshi community in Bradford. From 1989 to 1990 she worked on an exhibition at Huddersfield Art Gallery about South Asian communities in Kirklees.[1] She has been a full time carer for over 30 years for her daughter, who has had a serious liver disorder.[2] Since becoming a carer, she has not been able to afford her own camera, and has depended on grants and the loans of equipment.[3]

Afza guessed in 2011 that the owner of a hair salon might be approaching retirement, asked if she might photograph it, was permitted to do so, and learned that the owner indeed planned to sell up. For one year, she photographed the salon and its customers, many of whom had been going there for decades.[4] The work was exhibited at the University of Bradford.[5]

Afza first watched soccer when she accompanied her daughter to a Bradford City match; she was immediately struck by the number and enthusiasm of the female fans.[2][6][7] For her series City Girls, she photographed female fans of Bradford City in the Valley Parade stadium in black and white, using a Hasselblad Xpan camera given to her by Simon Beaufoy.[8]

From 2018 to 2019, Afza, a Muslim, photographed the Bradford Tree of Life Synagogue in Manningham, Bradford's last synagogue, and the people attending it before and after services. In 2013 this Grade II* listed building had needed expensive repair work and the synagogue's few members could not afford repairs; the Bradford Council for Mosques was among the organizations that contributed to preserve the building. Afza wanted to document the culture, which decades earlier had thrived in Bradford, before it disappeared. Under the title Kehillah (Hebrew for congregation or community), the photographs were exhibited in 2019.[3][9][10][11] She is now an honorary member of the synagogue.[3]

Simon Beaufoy commented on Kehillah:

Like all the best art, the images reflect the artist: watchful, politely enquiring, melancholic with the hint of a smile. So unobtrusive is the photographer's eye, that it's easy to miss what is being explored. There is always warmth and empathy, but often a distant sound of thunder.[11]