Holding out for a heroine

In the midst of a new exhibition celebrating Dorothy Wilding, founder and chair of the Hundred Heroines initiative Del Barrett

- Amy Davies

Starting life as an RPS initiative in 2018 to celebrate the centenary of (some) women getting the vote, Hundred+ Heroines is now an entity of its own.

Recently, it opened a brand new city-centre location in Gloucester. Its inaugural main exhibition celebrates the life and work of Dorothy Wilding, a hugely successful early- to-mid-20th century photographer whose portraits of the royals were used to illustrate postage stamps – and who also happened to be from Gloucester.

As well as the Wilding show there’s a host of other things to see at the Heroines Quarter, found at the top level of the Eastgate Shopping Centre. Contemporary work, archival work and community projects can all be found, as well as regular workshops, screenings, talks and informal gatherings. People are welcome to pop in to the centre to peruse the repository of photography books they have available, have a coffee and a chat and discover more about the work of the group.

Also on show at the moment is a contemporary exhibition called Skin Deep by Paola Peredes, while there’s also archival material from several of the Hundred Heroines, including Jane Hilton’s work with the sex workers of Nevada, Yan Wang Preston’s project on the Yangtze River, Tessa Traeger’s camera, Marcia Michael’s book and more besides.

The first complete archive that Hundred Heroines+ acquired was of German-born photographer Elisabeth Buchmeyer Lewis, who photographed Britain in the ’60s and ’70s – her archive is a fantastic social record of the time. It’s housed inside a ‘pod’, which has been decorated to look like a 1970s living room. There’s also another pod which is dedicated to art and activism, with members of the public encouraged to join in with their own protests and slogans.