There was no shortage of social ills to protest in the 20th Century. From labor disputes to racist discrimination to imperialism to nuclear destruction. “Resistance: How protest shaped photography and photography shaped protest,” a new exhibition conceived by Oscar-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen, co-curated with Clarrie Wallis, shows us the faces behind these social movements. A smiling Suffragette dragged away by police. A crowd of marching anti-racists, each one angry and defiant. Flannel-clad activists, literally, hugging trees. The diversity of dissent is clear in this moving and provocative exhibition.
The culmination of a four-year research project, “Resistance” documents a century of protest in Britain, starting in 1903 with the founding of the Women’s Social and Political Union, also known as the Suffragettes, and ending with the anti-war protests before the U.S./U.K. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Drawing from public and private archives, the curators whittled thousands of images down to the 200 or so that line the walls of Margate’s flagship exhibition space.
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No single photograph dominates “Resistance.” All are roughly the same size, all are framed uniformly, and all are black and white. Even recent shots from 2003 that were originally taken in color are rendered monochromatic. In this way, ”Resistance” is a democratic exhibition. The show follows a roughly chronological order, though divided into different strands of protest. The range of struggles photographed is powerful: fights for queer liberation, disability justice, environmental protection, racial equality – we’re confronted with a century of struggle.
Several of the images will be familiar to British audiences, illustrating famous moments embedded in national memory: the Jarrow Crusade, the poll tax revolts. Indeed, many visitors will remember marching against the invasion of Iraq themselves. In addition, several of the photographers are well-known figures, like Tish Murtha and Homer Sykes. But the exhibition’s most moving photographs are those of largely forgotten campaigns, such as the Blind March of 1920. The march led to the Blind Persons Act of 1920 and inspired a generation of later protests. The exhibition shows the only surviving photograph of the march and is extremely moving.
Art historian John Tagg argued that the camera, like the state, is never neutral. This is certainly proved true in “Resistance.” The exhibition presents dissent through different lenses (from professional photojournalism to ‘embedded photography’) but complicates the relationship between protest and photography by including police surveillance photographs from the Criminal Record Office. Whilst many of these campaigns were taking place, police were also using cameras to covertly catalog subversive individuals.
But movements found ways to resist photography, as well as resisting through photography. The Suffragettes were among the first to use press photography to their advantage, but they also made themselves into ‘difficult subjects’ when necessary, concealing their faces whenever possible. The relationship between photography and resistance isn’t always straightforward; it depends on who is holding the camera and how those in the frame choose to respond.
Curiously, “Resistance” includes two photographs of far-right icon Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists. His inclusion in the exhibition is not meant to symbolize its own kind of resistance—namely, fascism as an alternative to democracy – but rather to provide context for what campaigners were fighting against at the time. Still, his presence is jarring and a distinctly odious anomaly amongst the hundreds of photographs honoring valiant campaigners and activists.
Despite the horrors that each protester rallied against—fascism, racism, environmental destruction, nuclear holocaust—there is still joy in many of the images. Two men, one holding a sign reading “Young, in love, and angry” share a tender kiss at a public demo. A couple dance at the first Caribbean Carnival in 1959, organized in response to racist violence. For many, the act of celebration is itself an act of defiance.
The most recent photographs – portraying the protest against the Iraq war – are particularly moving, and not just because of their proximity in time. This section contrasts mass mobilization with individual acts of resistance. The march protesting the imminent invasion of Iraq is still the largest public demonstration in British history. But alongside the crowds of protesters, the exhibition includes Brian Haw’s solo campaign. From 2001 to 2011, Haw encamped himself outside the UK Parliament to protest British foreign policy. Juxtaposed with the crowds, the images of Haw, alone but defiant, prove that a singular act of resistance is as moving as a mass uprising.
It’s impossible not to think of the 20 years since 2003, the years not documented by the exhibition. Over the last year and a half, there have been numerous demonstrations in London and around the country against the war in Gaza—specifically protesting the UK’s complicity in that violence. Governments never make protest easy, but the current state of activism in the U.K. is particularly dangerous and dire. As I have written elsewhere, the crackdown on peaceful protest in Britain is a danger to everybody’s civil liberties. Legislation has increased police powers to interpret what is considered a threat to public order, leading to arrests and imprisonments of peaceful activists. As the title of Margate’s exhibition suggests, change only happens through resistance. Votes for women, gay liberation, disability rights: these may feel confined to the safe inevitability of history, but each was the result of sustained efforts under threat of violence, arrest and persecution.
Not every campaign featured in the exhibition ‘won’ in the strictest sense of the term, but each, at the very least, pushed public discourse towards equality and illuminated struggles that were previously in the shadows. The majority of the photographs in “Resistance” are of the analog age. Today, everyone has a camera in their pocket, meaning everyone can document dissent. “Resistance” is an ode to the heroes of the past. It should also be a provocation for the struggles of today.
“Resistance” is at Turner Contemporary through June 1, 2025.
