Exhibition: Represent!, People’s History Museum, Manchester

One day earlier this week, a group of around fifty Birmingham Museums Trust volunteers, including myself, boarded a coach up to Manchester for a day trip to the People’s History Museum (PHM) and the Whitworth Art Gallery. Having been a student in Manchester for three years I have been to both museums on a number of occasions, however this time we were treated to a guided tour of the People’s History Museum’s current exhibition called ‘Represent! Voices 100 Years On‘ a zine-inspired co-curated temporary exhibition marking the centenary of the Representation of the People Act.

However, this exhibit was not simply a display of suffragette paraphernalia or anti-suffrage propaganda, but included stories and items from recent and ongoing campaigns for representation of a variety of groups and issues. A standard suffragette display could have been adequately done by the PHM, the Pankhurst family are often seen as the founders of the modern womens suffrage movement, having formed the Women’s Social and Political Union, dubbed the ‘suffragettes’, in 1903 in their middle class Manchester home in Nelson Street. But the PHM, as their website states, is ‘the national museum of democracy’, and goes much further than passively looking back at the early 20th century campaign for universal suffrage.

Although beginning with suffragette photographs, banners and artefacts, with the famous ‘charity shop’ WSPU banner, Represent! goes on to explore modern day campaigns such as the anti-Trump march, supporters of immigrants held in Yarls Wood detention centre and trade union pickets during the 1980s. The displays are full of life, colour and passion, and bring history alive alongside current affairs and campaigns.

The exhibition brings up many thought-provoking questions and uncomfortable truths, including the lack of diversity in members of parliament, lack of voting age adults exercising their right to vote and media bias. ‘Legally Black’ is a project to highlight the lack of racial diversity in the mainstream media, by recreating icon British film posters with black actors, such as James Bond and Harry Potter. It is designed to open viewers minds to consider why they may be surprised by seeing black actors in these images, and why there is a lack of diversity in the wider media and entertainment industry.

Reflection and feedback were key ending points to the Represent! exhibit, visitors were encouraged to consider questions such as ‘How far have we come in the last 100 years?’ and ‘Do you feel represented?’ There was also a feminist zine library and reading area, a zine is a small-circulation, self-published piece of work.

This exhibition has further cemented my love of the PHM as potentially my favourite museum, and showcases it’s strong ethos telling the story of the development of democracy in the past, present and future.