Cardiff Met lecturer embarks on photography project to remember murdered women

The following content contains reference to violence against women, including specific references to victims of femicide that some may find upsetting.

Struck by the disparity in media attention between femicide cases, a Cardiff Metropolitan University lecturer embarked on a research project which involves visiting and photographing shallow graves where murdered women were buried.

Every year to mark International Women’s Day, Jess Phillips MP reads out the names of women in the UK killed by men at the annual Parliamentary International Women’s Day debate, with the data provided by the Femicide Census.

Jude Wall, Lecturer in Photography at Cardiff Metropolitan University, uses Jess Phillips’ speech to identify the sites where women have been buried in shallow graves and goes on to visit and capture visuals for her research and equalise the representation of women killed in the UK by men. Jude hopes these images can be used as memorials for the victims.

The Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls is required to request special permission to make an extended contribution which exceeds the length of time MPs are permitted to speak because of the length of time it takes to read each woman’s name.

Jude said: “Since starting this project I have been astounded by how many people are unaware of the number of victims. Both men and women have been very receptive to my images and want to engage with the work. I hope this allows conversations to focus on actions for change, rather than blame.”

Since starting the photography project in 2020 Jude has visited 20 shallow graves. While visiting the sites, Jude also takes soil samples to understand what happens to the ground after women’s bodies are buried.

Jude said: “My research has shown that what happens when the body first comes into contact with ground, quite quickly everything around the body will die. I thought that was a very interesting metaphor about the transference of trauma into the ground. The ground dies with the body. After about six months to a year, my research identified that the ground where the women’s body had been buried recovers and grows back twice as strong.”

Jude’s research has also taken her to the Forensic Anthropology Research Facility in Texas, a 26-acre outdoor human decomposition research lab at Texas State University’s Freeman Ranch to study changes to landscapes at burial sites. Here, she could see the chemical, physical and biological characteristics a body leaves on the earth once it is removed, something she calls the “transference of trauma to the ground.”

“This research project is important because conversations need to change. There is a lot of data and information about femicide but I think it gets missed because lots of people don’t engage with data,” Jude added.

In the recent Parliamentary International Women’s Day debate, Jess Phillips MP read out the names of the 95 women killed by men in the UK in 2024. Jude will now identify how many of these murders were reported on by the media before continuing her research.