The Ridings
Bradford Working-Class Family Life, Loss & Landscape: 1970’s-1990’s
by Emma Conally-Barklem
2 February to 30 March 2024

‘The Ridings’ is an enduring reckoning with family, self, grief, and the West Yorkshire
landscape. It is memory which connects us to love and there is no shortage of love in this
ordinary but extraordinary portrait of a biracial Bradford family, their working-class heritage,
and the traces they leave behind.
Conally-Barklem points to the importance of heritage and legacy in these photographs
through the ages and the poignancy of objects whose owners have departed. Loosely tracing
the universal thematic of courtship, marriage, and the arrival of children, the author breathes
life into the past. The exhibition is a combination of contemporary and original photography
of the period, letters, personal objects and extracts from ‘The Ridings’. Her Jhalak Prize
nominated collection is dedicated to her parents.
The exhibition encourages the viewer to engage on this nostalgic journey through the decades
and to feel the connection to their own personal histories. Within the exhibition, viewers can
listen to a personal reading of a poem whilst seeing the objects which inspired the poem.
The Ridings poetry collection explores a multitude of voices, trees & moors, food and nick
knacks which create a life. This collection is available to buy as part of the exhibition.

OPENING PERFORMANCE

5-6pm Friday February 2 2024

Community Room, South Square Gallery

The opening event for ‘The Ridings: Bradford Working-Class Family Life, Loss and Landscape 1970’s-1990’s’ will be a spoken word performance by Emma with anecdotes and poems from ‘The Ridings’ and a new collection in progress, ‘On the Grace of Strangers’.

Prepare to laugh, cry and take a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

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