A unique collaboration between medical research and art will form part of a major photographic exhibition at Southampton City Art Gallery next month. Southampton’s Women, photographed by Magda Segal, focuses on some of the women who are participating in the Southampton Women’s Survey. The Survey is one of the largest and most significant focused research surveys ever to be undertaken. Based at the University, it began in 1998 and involves all women in Southampton aged between 20 and 34 (about 20,000 women).

The aim of the Survey is to provide the first real information on the ways in which a mother’s size, health and diet before and during pregnancy affects her baby’s size and development in the womb, and its health in later life.

In parallel with the Survey, leading photographer Magda Segal was commissioned to photograph the daily lives of some of the women taking part. These photographs give the scientists new insight into behaviour and social influences which affect women’s diets and health; they also provide a moving visual documentation of the real lives of women today.

The success of the project is demonstrated by the degree of confidence that Magda Segal achieved with her subjects, enabling her to assemble a series of photographs that will leave a lasting impression on all who see them. She spent a great deal of time with the women, photographing them at home, with their children, with their friends- even photographing the inside of their fridges. The exhibition will be juxtaposed in the Gallery with ‘Ten Religious Masterpieces from the Royal Collection-A Millennium Celebration’.

The exhibition Southampton’s Women will be opened on Thursday 6 April, at 6 pm, by Rabbi Julia Neuberger.