Update: The Radical Clerkenwell Reinterpreted exhibition is being restaged at The Peel Institute during February and March 2025, with a drinks reception on February 25. Details here.
How can social action campaigns of the past inspire activists of today? In Clerkenwell the Marx Memorial Library (MML) has now opened an exhibition showing one way forward: invite local residents for a chat about the archives, with pizza also on the table.
Well, a bit more complicated than that, but it proved a good start.
Last week the Library showed the results of a collaboration with the Peel Centre and Finsbury Estate that I wrote about earlier. It was funded by the Association for Independent Museums and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
MML director Meirian Jump explained to me how residents were invited to three workshops in June, where they were introduced to just some of the 60,000 documents in the archive.
The first challenge was to find residents who might be interested, by making the event a welcoming occasion. That’s where the pizza helped.
The second challenge was to find some common ground for deeper discussion.
Clerkenwell has a rich history of radical action, stretching from the 1381 Peasants Revolt to more recent May Day rallies.
I’ve been exploring that history myself, and created some Radical Clerkenwell maps which you can see here. I’ve also developed some web pages bringing together articles and other resources.
It can be overwhelming – so I was impressed with the insights that the workshops produced. Although the format seemed simple, I can understand it took some skilled facilitation to find a focus. Meirian explained that squatting and housing issues provided one area for rich discussion.
There’s more about the way the exhibition was created by Simon Leach Design on their blog.
At the moment the exhibition is only publicly accessible at certain times – check the MML website or call 020 7253 1485.
I hope that MML is able to secure funding to develop their public access further, and to experiment with various ways in which local residents and others can engage with their archives.
Meanwhile, perhaps the exhibition panels could be available online, with scope to link to resources mentioned. That might prompt some further conversions about issues as relevant today as they were in the past. Here’s a couple of the panels, and a photo by Karl Weiss from the launch.
