University of Leeds hosts exhibition celebrating the city’s links to feminist activism

The University of Leeds is hosting an exhibition celebrating the city’s links to feminist activism.

The women’s history exhibition features contributions from actors such as Dame Maureen Lipman and Meera Syal.

According to the BBC, Animated Activism: Women Empowered will run throughout 2025 displaying the stories of two organisations born from the Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1970s: Women’s Aid and Leeds Animation Workshop.

The exhibition draws upon the archives of both organisations, which are housed within the university’s cultural collections. Visitors can explore a range of materials including newsletters, badges, posters, photographs and animation celluloid. 

For Women’s Aid, the exhibition forms part of their 50th-anniversary celebrations. Nikki Bradley, director of services at Women’s Aid, emphasised the importance of the exhibition in celebrating the achievements of the charity’s 50 year history.

She said: “The exhibition gives us the opportunity to look back at the incredible work of our organisation over the last half a century and reflect on just how far we’ve come.”

It also highlights the work of the Harehills-based Leeds Animation Workshop. This was a feminist filmmaking collective founded in 1976.

Its debut film, titled “Who Needs Nurseries? – We Do”, tackled the critical need for accessible pre-school childcare, produced by a small group of women in Leeds.

In 1982, with a grant from the British Film Institute, the collective bought a house in Harehills, where it remains today.

For nearly 50 years, the workshop has produced and distributed films addressing vital social and educational issues. This has included racism, homophobia and the environmental crisis.

These impactful films have featured narrations by renowned actors and writers such as Dame Maureen Lipman, Meera Syal, Alan Bennett, Sir Lenny Henry and Michael Rosen.

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A new short film, funded by the Welcome Trust, will explore the history of both Women’s Aid and the Leeds Animation Workshop, and how their archives found a home at the University of Leeds.

Terry Wragg, a founding member and worker-director of the Leeds Animation Workshop, said: “The organisation had donated its collection to the university so that, in the future, nobody will be able to tell young women from Yorkshire they can’t make animated films”.

Terry continued: “When many of us were young, in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, they told us women couldn’t be artists or animators.

“A woman, if she was extremely lucky, might be allowed to trace and paint some of the men’s drawings, or perhaps be secretary to a director. And if you were living in the North there would be no chance at all.”

Featured image via TikTok