Bristol Radical History Festival 2023

Any movement which is ignorant of its own history is a prisoner of other people’s history. We can’t possibly win the future unless we keep our hands on our own past. (Gwyn Alf Williams)

2023 sees the 5th annual Bristol Radical History Festival. This is hosted as usual by the fantastic M Shed, the museum on the city’s historic harbourside that tells the story of Bristol and its unique place in the world. We warmly invite you to join us at this popular event.

We have a full programme (see bottom of page), which is again based on two main themes:

Radical Bristol and the Visual Arts

This theme explores radical visual artists in Bristol over two centuries. Hazel Gower and Leigh Thomas will discuss Romantic-era painters Rolinda and Ellen Sharples, influential not just for their art, but as founders of Bristol’s Royal West of England Academy (RWA). We look forward to a rare “return” to the city by the charismatic nineteenth-century designer and political philosopher William Morris, who lectured at the Bristol Museum and Library in 1885. Moving forward with our time machine, Marie Mulvey-Roberts, co-curator of a highly successful exhibition on Angela Carter and visual art at the RWA will discuss the delights and challenges of curating works reflecting the visual imagination of one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. Members of the Monica Sjöö Curatorial Collective will discuss the relationship between the art and the radical activism of long-term Clifton resident, Monica Sjöö, while Stephen Lisney will consider the modernist work of the feminist-socialist painter, Doris Hatt.

Bristol Trade Union History: Then and Now     

This theme will aim to provide a historical context for the recent burst of trade union activity in Bristol and throughout the U.K. Ralph Darlington, Mike Richardson and Bob Whitfield will focus on trade union disputes in the past and Sheila Caffrey, President of the Bristol Trades Union Council on its 150th aniversary, and Dave Chapple will be bringing the story up to date. Silu Pascoe will be speaking on the ‘Bristol Bus Boycott: Race, Unions and Civil Rights’ and Andy Danford will consider the campaign to convert from arms production to socially useful production in the Bristol aerospace industry in the 1970s and 1980s. To mark the anniversary of the Bristol Trades Council there will also be a screening of ‘100 Years of Struggle’, a film made by BBC Bristol to mark the Council’s centenary and introduced by Colin Thomas.

It’s not just talks…

The exhibitions of photos, flyers and posters will include:

• Facing up to the Fascists: Confronting the National Front in Bristol in the 1970s [Guided tour 12:00pm]
• Subvertising in Bristol – The St. Just Mob [Guided tour 12.20pm]
• Bristol against apartheid [Guided tour 1.20pm]
  
• Visual mapping project – Women’s threads of Bristol [Guided tour 2.20pm]

There will be history walks, performance and lots of stalls with books and merchandise from local and national groups. As always, the festival is a free event with no booking required.

Stalls

We are pleased to host the following stalls:  Bristol Radical History Group, Remembering the Real World War I Group, Anarchist Communist Group, Bookhaus, Bristol AFed, Bristol & Bath Cuba Solidarity Campaign, Bristol Solidarity Federation, Bristol Squatted, Bristol Trades Council, MayDay Rooms, Monica Sjöö Collective, Past Pixels, Peoples’ Republic of Stokes Croft, Protect our NHS, Radical Poster Collective,  SixPointsCardiff, Tangent Books, Welsh Underground Network, Wessex Solidarity, West of England & South Wales Women’s Network, Base Bristol Collective, White Horse (Wiltshire) Trades Union Council.

Publicity

You can also follow this event via social media for the Festival… please share!

You can download and print a Bristol Radical History Festival flyer (pdf file) or A4 Poster (jpg), featuring Walter Crane’s Garland for May Day (1895).

Facebook: Bristol Radical History Festival event page here.

Twitter: @BrisRadHis #BRHF2023

Programme

The following programme of events will be updated regularly – check back soon!