Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery holds hand-painted banners from the first political union in Britain founded in the 1820s, a plaque made from plaster scraped from the walls of Wormwood Scrubs by a First World War conscientious objector and over 100 badges collected by a local supporter of the miners’ strikes to name a few items, and this exhibition is presenting this hidden collection to the public in many cases for the first time.
What does the heritage trail format offer to the communication of radical histories? Charlotte Tomlinson introduces the East End Women’s Museum’s (EEWM) Brilliant Women of Whitechapel, Bow and Barking Heritage Trail, which explores stories of ‘ordinary yet extraordinary’ women who have lived in East London.
By Nancy Biberman We were an optimistic and righteous generation, many of us conceived and raised by men and women who had survived World War II. My dad was an Army combat vet who fought in the South Pacific and trained GIs on the use of top-secret proximity fuse weaponry. […]
A handmade wooden gun confiscated by the British during the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya made its way into Birmingham’s museum collection.
‘The lifejacket is a symbol and a provocation’, Christopher Whitehead responds to Manchester Museum’s acquisition.
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.
As statues spark controversy, Laura Leonard critically examines how white supremacists in Charlottesville, as well as critics of the ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ campaign, have invoked heritage as a legitimising language.
