Changing Lives, an exhibition exploring Sheffield’s history of popular protest, is on show at what feels like an appropriate time. The project was prompted by this year’s centenary of the passing of the Representation of the People Act and the acts of protest by the Suffragette movement that led to it.
Sheffield is a fitting place for such an exhibition as much of the modern city has been shaped through the actions of strong-minded and courageous men and women, and continues to be so. The city has seen mass gatherings on several occasions in the past year, be it as part of the women’s marches in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election in the US, or in solidarity with striking NHS junior doctors.
This spirit of activism and social responsibility is reflected in Sheffield’s museum service. The programme at Museums Sheffield is consistently suffused with civic pride and a respect for its audience. It has been 10 years since Weston Park Museum won the Kids in Museums family-friendly museum award in 2008, but it remains clear why it was given that honour: it strives to be welcoming and accessible for all.
The team at Museums Sheffield obtained a grant from the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund to investigate their collection and unearth any previously unknown connections with protest and activism. At the same time, a public campaign was started to collect new objects to display alongside them. As a result, Changing Lives is firmly embedded in today’s society.
The exhibition is in a large open space dotted with small individual cases that explore activism around a particular issue or event. This approach reflects the material on display, made up largely of seemingly disposable ephemera rather than dazzling individual objects. This is a pleasing approach – the displays reflect the essence of the subject without the complication of forensically explaining every object. It works to particularly good effect in sections addressing the campaign for access to moorland in the early 1900s, and the industrial action at Keetons engineering firm in the 1980s and 1990s.
Nevertheless, there are some compelling objects here. Pablo Picasso’s Dove of Peace, sketched on a visit to Sheffield for the 1950 World Peace Congress, is one example. A beautiful patchwork textile telling individual stories of Chilean exiles in Sheffield is another. Also on display is the only known photograph taken at a Chartist meeting in 1848.
Sense of social history
There is a timeline at the start of the exhibition, giving details of the different protests held in the city’s history. This begins with John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, preaching in Paradise Square in 1779, and culminates in a long list of protests in 2017, including those against fracking and the HS2 railway project.
This is the only chronologically arranged section and serves as a grounding for the rest of the show. This approach magnifies the common threads through all the displays: the force of popular opinion, the courage to speak truth to hostile authority and often a sense of humour. The image of a striking miner at Orgreave in a toy police helmet, nose to nose with a sober-faced police officer, is displayed close to the artist Jeremy Deller’s Strong and Stable My Arse posters that appeared on bus stops in London during the 2017 general election.
Also shown are some hilarious homemade placards from the anti-Trump protests. Their presentation alongside similar material from, for example, protests prompted by the 1819 Peterloo Massacre illustrates the value of consistent contemporary collecting. Objects such as these are the essence of social history.
People power
One striking element of the exhibition is the audience. Weston Park Museum attracts a large number of families – during my visit it quickly filled up with visitors from a diverse age range, the majority of whom were in multigenerational groups. It was heartening to see grandparents explaining contentious subjects, such as the miners’ strike or apartheid to young children, pointing out elements of the displays to help them do so. Where else but in a great social history exhibition could this happen.
The use of different media in the exhibition is understated but no less effective. There are listening posts to hear traditional protest songs on headphones. The curators have also mined the rich resource of the Pathé news archive, showing footage of historical speeches and demonstrations, including the funeral procession of the suffragette Emily Davison.
There is an element of piped sound at the entrance, a mixture of the recordings from different historical protests, as an attempt to convey the noise and confusion of a demonstration. This is sympathetically done and is an extension of the generally DIY feel of the presentation. The interpretation labels are stapled to the walls in the manner of posters and the titles of sections are handwritten.
There is a space where visitors are invited to make their own Japanese paper cranes, the traditional peace symbol, which are left to spill all over the cases. There is also an area for people to suggest contemporary issues that need our attention, and cards with contact details of all the groups that are mentioned in the exhibition. These small details work to build the picture of a real community space.
The anniversary of the Representation of the People Act has clearly provided an opportunity to address the subject of protest, but this excellent exhibition has gone much further. It has taken the subject as a starting point for an alternative narrative on Sheffield’s development: economically, politically and, above all, socially. There is no judgment or taking of sides on the issues raised.
The result is a refreshing spotlight on the character of the city. As one of the striking miners from the 1980s portrayed in the exhibition says: “The people are the thing that’s important.”
Simon Brown is the curator of collections at Newstead Abbey in Nottingham and a Museums Association board member
Main funders Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund; Arts Council England; Sheffield City Council
Exhibition design and fitout Museums Sheffield
Graphic design Office of Craig
AV design Museums Sheffield
Exhibition ends 1 July
Admission Free
Sheffield is a fitting place for such an exhibition as much of the modern city has been shaped through the actions of strong-minded and courageous men and women, and continues to be so. The city has seen mass gatherings on several occasions in the past year, be it as part of the women’s marches in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s election in the US, or in solidarity with striking NHS junior doctors.
This spirit of activism and social responsibility is reflected in Sheffield’s museum service. The programme at Museums Sheffield is consistently suffused with civic pride and a respect for its audience. It has been 10 years since Weston Park Museum won the Kids in Museums family-friendly museum award in 2008, but it remains clear why it was given that honour: it strives to be welcoming and accessible for all.
The team at Museums Sheffield obtained a grant from the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund to investigate their collection and unearth any previously unknown connections with protest and activism. At the same time, a public campaign was started to collect new objects to display alongside them. As a result, Changing Lives is firmly embedded in today’s society.
The exhibition is in a large open space dotted with small individual cases that explore activism around a particular issue or event. This approach reflects the material on display, made up largely of seemingly disposable ephemera rather than dazzling individual objects. This is a pleasing approach – the displays reflect the essence of the subject without the complication of forensically explaining every object. It works to particularly good effect in sections addressing the campaign for access to moorland in the early 1900s, and the industrial action at Keetons engineering firm in the 1980s and 1990s.
Nevertheless, there are some compelling objects here. Pablo Picasso’s Dove of Peace, sketched on a visit to Sheffield for the 1950 World Peace Congress, is one example. A beautiful patchwork textile telling individual stories of Chilean exiles in Sheffield is another. Also on display is the only known photograph taken at a Chartist meeting in 1848.
Sense of social history
There is a timeline at the start of the exhibition, giving details of the different protests held in the city’s history. This begins with John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, preaching in Paradise Square in 1779, and culminates in a long list of protests in 2017, including those against fracking and the HS2 railway project.
This is the only chronologically arranged section and serves as a grounding for the rest of the show. This approach magnifies the common threads through all the displays: the force of popular opinion, the courage to speak truth to hostile authority and often a sense of humour. The image of a striking miner at Orgreave in a toy police helmet, nose to nose with a sober-faced police officer, is displayed close to the artist Jeremy Deller’s Strong and Stable My Arse posters that appeared on bus stops in London during the 2017 general election.
Also shown are some hilarious homemade placards from the anti-Trump protests. Their presentation alongside similar material from, for example, protests prompted by the 1819 Peterloo Massacre illustrates the value of consistent contemporary collecting. Objects such as these are the essence of social history.
People power
One striking element of the exhibition is the audience. Weston Park Museum attracts a large number of families – during my visit it quickly filled up with visitors from a diverse age range, the majority of whom were in multigenerational groups. It was heartening to see grandparents explaining contentious subjects, such as the miners’ strike or apartheid to young children, pointing out elements of the displays to help them do so. Where else but in a great social history exhibition could this happen.
The use of different media in the exhibition is understated but no less effective. There are listening posts to hear traditional protest songs on headphones. The curators have also mined the rich resource of the Pathé news archive, showing footage of historical speeches and demonstrations, including the funeral procession of the suffragette Emily Davison.
There is an element of piped sound at the entrance, a mixture of the recordings from different historical protests, as an attempt to convey the noise and confusion of a demonstration. This is sympathetically done and is an extension of the generally DIY feel of the presentation. The interpretation labels are stapled to the walls in the manner of posters and the titles of sections are handwritten.
There is a space where visitors are invited to make their own Japanese paper cranes, the traditional peace symbol, which are left to spill all over the cases. There is also an area for people to suggest contemporary issues that need our attention, and cards with contact details of all the groups that are mentioned in the exhibition. These small details work to build the picture of a real community space.
The anniversary of the Representation of the People Act has clearly provided an opportunity to address the subject of protest, but this excellent exhibition has gone much further. It has taken the subject as a starting point for an alternative narrative on Sheffield’s development: economically, politically and, above all, socially. There is no judgment or taking of sides on the issues raised.
The result is a refreshing spotlight on the character of the city. As one of the striking miners from the 1980s portrayed in the exhibition says: “The people are the thing that’s important.”
Simon Brown is the curator of collections at Newstead Abbey in Nottingham and a Museums Association board member
Project data
Cost £11,000Main funders Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund; Arts Council England; Sheffield City Council
Exhibition design and fitout Museums Sheffield
Graphic design Office of Craig
AV design Museums Sheffield
Exhibition ends 1 July
Admission Free