The Peace Museum.
Women’s historical peace photography
The Peace Museum are showcasing women's contribution to peace photography
Bradford’s Peace Museum marked International Women’s Day by celebrating women’s contribution to peace photography following world war one.
‘Women at the Peace Tables: Photography and the Paris Peace Conference, 1919’ was presented by Pippa Oldfield, head of the progamme at Impressions Gallery, on 8 March. She shared her research into the ways in which women used photography to record and re-imagine peace processes in the wake of the first world war.
She said: ‘The Peace Museum has an internationally important collection which we’re extremely lucky to have in Bradford. I’m excited to be sharing new research on some of their photographs and artefacts that highlight the role of women in campaigning for peace.’
The exhibition features printing blocks from the Women’s International Congress in Zurich, which was held at the same time as the Peace Treaty of Versailles and hosted over two hundred women from seventeen nations. At this conference the International Congress of Women regrouped to form a new organisation which opposed the Treaty, named the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF, see image).
According to Pippa Oldfield, ‘The work was sparked by New Focus, Impressions Gallery’s young people’s collective, as part of the Heritage Lottery-funded project No Man’s Land: Young People Uncover Women’s Viewpoints on the First World War.’ The collective carried out research into the WILPF.
