I heard about this from ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
littlebutfierce, and we tried to go see it together but failed, so today I took my rainy August Bank Holiday down at the Victoria & Albert Museum, which is pretty amazing. I saw only a few galleries, but it was really great throughout, and this special exhibition, on the objects and design of protest and activism, was one of the best I've seen. It goes from the suffragette movement to #occupygezi and beyond, though the meat of it is from the 1970s forward, and it is quite well done. Though it's honestly on the small side, it packs a real punch; I teared up at one point (the point where the organizers had displayed the quote from Mario Savio's machine speech), and left, as usual, feeling inspired, determined, and challenged. I also left with handouts on how to construct one's own book bloc shield and makeshift tear-gas mask, so don't let anyone tell you that museums don't teach you anything.
Seeing these objects in the museum setting was really interesting; I would never have thought to put them there, and as the organizers note, these objects challenge the museum paradigm itself, among many other things (my favorite item in the exhibition was probably the banner reading Capitalism IS Crisis, but it's so hard to choose). Kudos to the Victoria & Albert for having the chutzpah to put this on. Go see it if you can.
littlebutfierce, and we tried to go see it together but failed, so today I took my rainy August Bank Holiday down at the Victoria & Albert Museum, which is pretty amazing. I saw only a few galleries, but it was really great throughout, and this special exhibition, on the objects and design of protest and activism, was one of the best I've seen. It goes from the suffragette movement to #occupygezi and beyond, though the meat of it is from the 1970s forward, and it is quite well done. Though it's honestly on the small side, it packs a real punch; I teared up at one point (the point where the organizers had displayed the quote from Mario Savio's machine speech), and left, as usual, feeling inspired, determined, and challenged. I also left with handouts on how to construct one's own book bloc shield and makeshift tear-gas mask, so don't let anyone tell you that museums don't teach you anything. Seeing these objects in the museum setting was really interesting; I would never have thought to put them there, and as the organizers note, these objects challenge the museum paradigm itself, among many other things (my favorite item in the exhibition was probably the banner reading Capitalism IS Crisis, but it's so hard to choose). Kudos to the Victoria & Albert for having the chutzpah to put this on. Go see it if you can.