Last month I visited a handful of galleries in London's east end. My sights were on Hackney Museum's latest exhibition Growing up Black, memories of local and now nationally recognised photographer Dennis Morris's youth in Hackney.
I was also drawn to Striking Women at the Women's Library, a snapshot of the South Asian women's protests at Grunwick in 1976 and Gate Gourmet 2005.
The display, part of a research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, counters the stereotype of the passive Asian woman. It juxtaposes the two responses to poor treatment from their employers - a photographic processing factory on the one hand and airline caterer on the other. The latter resulted in British Airways planes brought to a standstill.
Although the display is woefully small it flags up important periods of protest in Britain and ones which many will have little prior knowledge of.
But I almost missed the gem in the middle. The Whitechapel Gallery's White: Why Have I Told Everything, an installation by Faisal Abdu'Allah. Again, this uses the theme of protest starting with the Cable Street Riot of 1936.
The installation includes oral testimonies from witnesses to a Fascist march through the predominantly Jewish area of East London which, despite police protection, ended in the Fascists retreating. In response we hear young people today reflecting on Tibet, Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iraq war.
The protest theme continues downstairs at the Whitechapel in Goshka Macuga's fantastically thought-provoking The Nature of the Beast. The Polish artist has used Picasso's anti-war painting Guernica to discuss protest, from the Spanish Civil War to an amazing film of testimony and dissent during the Vietnam War through to present day protest against the conflict in Iraq.
In my haste to find Black History Month offerings, I could easily have missed the interpretations that on this occasion really got me thinking.
I was also drawn to Striking Women at the Women's Library, a snapshot of the South Asian women's protests at Grunwick in 1976 and Gate Gourmet 2005.
The display, part of a research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, counters the stereotype of the passive Asian woman. It juxtaposes the two responses to poor treatment from their employers - a photographic processing factory on the one hand and airline caterer on the other. The latter resulted in British Airways planes brought to a standstill.
Although the display is woefully small it flags up important periods of protest in Britain and ones which many will have little prior knowledge of.
But I almost missed the gem in the middle. The Whitechapel Gallery's White: Why Have I Told Everything, an installation by Faisal Abdu'Allah. Again, this uses the theme of protest starting with the Cable Street Riot of 1936.
The installation includes oral testimonies from witnesses to a Fascist march through the predominantly Jewish area of East London which, despite police protection, ended in the Fascists retreating. In response we hear young people today reflecting on Tibet, Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iraq war.
The protest theme continues downstairs at the Whitechapel in Goshka Macuga's fantastically thought-provoking The Nature of the Beast. The Polish artist has used Picasso's anti-war painting Guernica to discuss protest, from the Spanish Civil War to an amazing film of testimony and dissent during the Vietnam War through to present day protest against the conflict in Iraq.
In my haste to find Black History Month offerings, I could easily have missed the interpretations that on this occasion really got me thinking.
