The industrial landscape of Bradford has always been a profound source of inspiration, melancholy, and memory for Nudrat Afza. When she first arrived in Britain in the mid-1960s, the skyline of the city was defined by its towering textile mills. Chief among them was the grand Drummond Mill, famous for the iconic clock face that kept time for generations of workers, and the exquisite, uniquely engraved glass windows in its offices. For decades, Afza harbored a deep, instinctual desire to document these architectural details.
Tragically, before she could fulfill that dream, Drummond Mill was entirely destroyed by a devastating fire. This loss catalyzed the ‘Ruins of Bradford’ series, a melancholic visual exploration of the city’s fading industrial heritage. Shot using a wide-format Hasselblad XPan camera, the panoramic images emphasize the scale, eeriness, and historical weight of these vanishing structures.
These compositions occasionally feature solitary human figures juxtaposed against crumbling brickwork and commercial signage, such as a traditional “chemist and cloth house”. These figures bring a sense of life, scale, and sudden transition to a silent landscape. ‘Ruins of Bradford’ is not merely an exercise in architectural documentation; it is a visual elegy to the brick, mortar, and human labor that built modern Bradford, capturing the eerie beauty of a skyline in transition.
Date:
9 June 2021
