Studio 2: Women, politics and protest: Feminist perspectives on ‘68

In two short reflective talks, Sheila Rowbotham and Hilary Wainwright will contribute personal memories of links between events, movements and ideas which surfaced in 1968 and the emergence of the women’s liberation movement of the early 1970s. They will describe how these helped to shape their approaches to politics. These will be followed by contributions and discussion from the audience. In 1969, Sheila Rowbotham’s influential pamphlet Women's Liberation and the New Politics, argued that […]

History Walk 2: Bristol – Feeding the people

Markets, trade, transport and conflict (17th-19th Centuries)

On this history walk we will discover how Bristolians were fed during the early modern era (17th-19th Centuries). Hear how a rapidly expanding urban area, without the ability to feed itself, was kept supplied. How Bristol in turn helped supply the rural hinterland and its relationship with Wales and the wider world. How the market system worked, and how it was regulated, at times by the civic authorities, or by the “moral economy” and the crowd. What happened when the chain broke, and how did […]

History Walk 1 and Film: Painted out of history

Ellen and Rolinda Sharples

What is the connection between the Bristol Sharples family of artists, the American Revolution of the 1780s and the Royal West of England Academy of Art? Join Lee Cox and Hazel Gower, director and writer of a TV film about Ellen and Rolinda Sharples, in exploring the places where they lived and worked at the beginning of the 19th century. Rolinda became the only female member of the Bristol School of Narrative Artists, whilst the Sharples family little known legacy led to the establishment of […]

Level 2: Poster making: make a print poster with Cato Press

Cato Press, Easton’s very own print workshop, continues the tradition and art of relief printmaking. Members of Cato Press will be on hand in the activities and exhibitions area on Level 2 with some radical designs. Be sure to pay them a visit to print your own poster to take away!

Level 2: Exhibition : Dennis Gould’s art and memorabilia

Stroud letterpress artist, poet and activist

Poet and letterpress artist Dennis Gould began the early 1960s in Stafford Prison. Serving with the Royal Engineers during the 1950s, he later took up the cause of the Committee of 100, the direct-action wing of the anti-nuclear movement, carrying out acts of non-violent civil disobedience for which he was detained at her Majesty’s pleasure. In 1965 Dennis helped to organise an anarchist fringe festival of poetry at the Octagon in Bath. He continued to campaign and work with Peace News and then […]

Studio 2: The Bristol Sit-in: Student protest and occupation in 1968

In the winter of 1968 Bristol students occupied Senate House for 10 days. Their demands included greater representation for student reps on University bodies and 'reciprocal membership' for all students in the city which would allow access, even for lowly polytechnic students, to the wonderful facilities of the newly opened University Students Union Building. Two participants in the sit-in, Sue Tate and Kevin Whitston, will start this session with brief presentations before opening it out to […]

Level 2: Exhibition: Political posters of 1968

We are very pleased to be hosting an exhibition of political posters from the 1968 movements created our friends at the Interference Archive in New York. From the Atelier Populaire (print collectives) of France’s insurgent 1968 to the radical posters of the Prague Spring and the university occupations in the United States and Mexico City. This exhibition is an an entry point into the cultural production of the global '68 moment and its continued influence on politics, art, and design today.

Studio 1: The Shot At Dawn Campaign: Rewriting History and Pardoning the Past

In 2006 a legislative pardon of sorts was granted for some of the men executed by the British military during the First World War. However, the fight for something to be done about this – and the British military’s legal process and sentencing practice - had started during the war. This paper traces the efforts to gain justice for those men who died. It also considers resistance to ‘rewriting’ history and reflects upon campaigning and the use of pardoning here.

Level 2: Banner making: The Atelier Populaire: The Struggles Continue!

In May 68, visual culture was deployed as a form of radical protest, not just in the Parisian Atelier Populaire where students and faculty staff took over the Ecole des Beaux Arts, putting print on the map as a tool of global resistance movements, but around the globe from Italy to Mexico, from Japan to the United Kingdom, from the United States to Yugoslavia. These were "weapons in the service of the struggle… an inseparable part of it. Their rightful place is in the centres of conflict, that […]

History Walk and Film: Painted out of history

Ellen and Rolinda Sharples

What is the connection between the Bristol Sharples family of artists, the American Revolution of the 1780s and the Royal West of England Academy of Art? Join Lee Cox and Hazel Gower, director and writer of a TV film about Ellen and Rolinda Sharples, in exploring the places where they lived and worked at the beginning of the 19th century. Rolinda became the only female member of the Bristol School of Narrative Artists, whilst the Sharples family little known legacy led to the establishment of […]