Protest! Voices of Dissent in Art and Text

Protest! Voices of Dissent in Art and Text will be held in the Haldane Room of UCL Wilkins Building on 26th March, 6:15pm to 8pm.

The evening’s programme will comprise two talks, a display of a range of materials from UCL Special Collections, and a selection of wine, soft drinks and nibbles to get the evening off to a relaxing start!

The Small Press Project: In Conversation with Egidija Čiricaitė and Liz Lawes

The Small Press Project from Slade School of Fine Art takes inspiration from UCL Special Collections’ small press collection each year. This year’s project, Visions of Protest: BLAKE THE MARCH, has been used as a critical lens through which artists, academics and students can focus on what connections exist between the democracy of print, their aesthetics and the autonomy of artists’ books and publishing. Egidija Čiricaitė will be in conversation with Liz Lawes, our very own small press collections expert (and UCL’s Subject Liaison Librarian: Fine Art, History of Art and Film Studies).

Printing Peterloo

On the 16th August 1819, a peaceful protest for electoral reform at St Peter’s Fields Manchester was suppressed. The large crowd, assembled to hear the orator Henry Hunt, were charged on by the local yeomanry cavalry resulting in casualties and injuries. The events became known as “Peterloo”, an ironic reference to the Battle of Waterloo of 1815. This was a pivotal moment in the histories of democracy, protest and “working class politics.” Peterloo inspired political pamphlets, poetry and caricature and most recently Mike Leigh’s film of 2018. This session, led by the British Museum’s Susannah Walker, will consider the memory of Peterloo in print using objects from UCL Special Collections and The British Museum.

This event is open to anyone over the age of 16.