Why are displays of electric light an effective way to challenge inequality? Samson Lim explores the history of electrification in Thailand, and the way in which infrastructure itself became a site for both elite expressions of power and challenges to that status quo.
What part do children occupy in protest movements? Alice Haworth-Booth locates the story of school strikes and children’s activism within a broader history of political change.
How did the civic spaces of Sheffield animate new forms of working-class protest and procession? Katrina Navickas argues that public space became an instrument of democratic struggle and a means for building unity amongst Chartist groups.
How did 1970s New York become a laboratory for a grand experiment in ‘returning streets to the people’? Mariana Mogilevich argues that street life and politics in Midtown Manhattan became central to the inception of a new form pedestrian citizenship.
The last fortnight has seen many statues associated with racism and colonialism torn down. When were they originally put up, and what can that tell about the history of whiteness and empire? Peter Hill explores.
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.
Thirty years ago, rave swept Britain, bringing a visceral sense of change. From film to dance, Peder Clark explores recent attempts to grapple with its legacies.
