"I didn’t just want to take photographs of women in landscapes I wanted to go on adventures with them to the place of their story," photographer Carolyn Mendelsohn
A truly inspiring Yorkshire photography exhibition which captures Yorkshire women in the rural landscape will be on display in a converted wool barn at the Great Yorkshire Show.
Hardy and Free has been created by award-winning Yorkshire photographer Carolyn Mendelsohn and takes its name from a line in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights: “I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free...”
It was originally commissioned by the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth in 2023 as part of its contemporary arts programme and then a new series of large-scale portraits with audio from the women involved, was created for Bradford 2025, UK City of Culture and adorned Kirkgate Shopping Centre.
The photographs, which are three metres by two metres each are hung in a huge barn where they used to show the pigeons on the Yorkshire Show Ground.
Hardy and Free explores the relationship between 12 contemporary women and the natural world, all sharing a profound emotional link with the landscapes that shape them.
Over several seasons, Mendelsohn photographed her subjects, who included the Great Yorkshire Show Director and farmer Rachel Coates, as well as artists, swimmers, athletes, adventurers and activists, in their chosen natural locations. She also recorded their thoughts on why those places were important to them.
From remote moorlands to urban parks, waterfalls to working farms, these environments serve as a backdrop to narratives of resilience, creativity and identity.
“I am delighted that my series Hardy and Free is being exhibited at the Great Yorkshire Show,” says Mendelsohn. “It feels especially apt that work made in collaboration with women from Yorkshire, in landscapes that hold deep personal meaning for them, is being presented at an event so closely connected to agricultural life and experienced by thousands of visitors.
“The journey of the series reflects this spirit first shown on an intimate scale at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, then expanded outdoors in the urban centre of Bradford as part of its City of Culture programme and now brought indoors again at large scale within the setting of the Show.
“My hope is that at the Great Yorkshire Show more people will encounter these portraits, enjoy them and be inspired to think about their own stories, and their personal relationship to landscape.”
The photographs are of a diverse group of women but what connects them is their relationship with the landscape and they all have a story to tell.
“In this series we have musician Furaha Mussanzi and her image is in Peel Park. She came to Bradford as a refugee from the Congo with her family when she was 12. She is extraordinary. Her place that she chose to take me to that makes her feel hardy and free was Peel Park. She would go there everyday it was a place she felt she was safe,” explains Mendelsohn.
"Then we have poet Nabeela Ahmed who took me to a secret location at St Ives and Alice Nutter who used to be in Chumbawamber and is now a screenwriter she took me to Sykes Wood because during the pandemic she was really struggling due to breast cancer and two strokes. Her daughter came back from university to look after her and then she became unwell and she made her do this walk with her around Sykes Wood, she talks about the transformative experience of walking everyday and it became this massive healing experience.
"Each story is really rich. I didn’t just want to take photographs of women in landscapes I wanted to go on adventures with them to the place of their story.”
Show Director Rachel Coates said: “I was honoured to take part in this exhibition, and it is fascinating to see how a diverse group of women interact with the rural landscape we are all lucky enough to share in Yorkshire.”
Hardy and Free will be on show in the building next to the Ariat GYS Stage from Wednesday to Friday at the Great Yorkshire Show Ground.