A handmade wooden gun confiscated by the British during the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya made its way into Birmingham’s museum collection.
Radical Objects
Radical Objects: New Zealand’s Socialist Cross of Honor and Antimilitarist Protest
Medals for antimilitarism. Jared Davidson on New Zealand’s Socialist Cross of Honour and the personal tales of the antimilitarist movement.
Radical Objects: Migration and Museums – A Response
‘The lifejacket is a symbol and a provocation’, Christopher Whitehead responds to Manchester Museum’s acquisition.
Radical Objects: A Radical Jug?
How do we determine whether an object is radical? Ruth Mather on the Farmer’s Arms jug at the People’s History Museum.
Radical Objects: A Refugee’s Life Jacket at Manchester Museum
How are museums responding to the refugee crisis in Europe? Bryan Sitch on Manchester Museum’s acquisition & display of a refugee’s life jacket from the Greek island of Lesvos.
Radical T-Shirts from Thailand
The political schism is often dubbed “Red versus Yellow” due to the colour of the t-shirts worn by the two rival movements.
The Radical History of a Bed Sheet
Anna Maria Radcliffe created a bed sheet that functioned as an instrument of personal and communal memory, and as an agent of religious and political resistance.
Radical Objects: The Peasants’ Revolt Badge
Stephen Williams recounts the 1981 Peasants’ Revolt on Blackheath in South London, galvanising the left’s resistance to a Tory majority and commemorating the 1381 march.
Radical Objects: Covenanter Gravestones as Political Protest
Memorials marking the graves and celebrating the sacrifices of the Restoration martyrs can be read as political texts.
The Pacifist Handkerchief
The pacifist handkerchief invites reflections on contested memories in modern Japanese history.