Locke shows Queen Victoria adorned in colonialism’s horror at ‘What Have We Here?’
“What have we here?” is a bold and thought-provoking exhibition that displays sculptor Hew Locke’s in-depth research into the British Museum’s colonial history.
Locke shines a light on the uglier side of the museum in quite an unbiased way, letting the audience make up their own minds about the history.
The British Museum has acknowledged that it owes much of its collection to colonialism, recognising some of the violence involved in this process. But it doesn’t hold itself to account.
The Museum has information about its history. But this tends to paint the British in a relatively positive light, in some cases almost blaming colonised people for having their objects stolen.
Locke’s exhibition fills in the details left out by the museum, showing the brutality of British colonialism alongside information about trade relations before colonialism.
Stories of resistance are missing from the Museum, but absolutely deserve to be told. In India, the military mutiny against the East India Company in 1857 led to nationwide rebellion against British rule. It’s seen by many as the first Indian War of Independence.
The exhibition exposes the lengths that British colonists went to in curating their image. They referred to going somewhere to beat the locals into submission as an “expedition” to make it seem less violent. Queen Victoria portrayed herself as a loving “mother of empire” by becoming godmother to children displaced by colonial wars.
The way we understand the objects in the Museum’s collection, which have already been ripped (sometimes literally) out of their original contexts, depends completely on how the Museum curators choose to represent them.
Not only are they frozen in the Museum’s narrative, but the history behind how they ended up there is obscured too. I think the combination of Locke’s own art with the Museum’s objects is really effective in reshaping how we look at these objects.
Locke’s Watcher figures are particularly striking. They’re also present outside the exhibition in the Museum’s Enlightenment Gallery, which interrupts the normal museum experience.
Like the objects they’re surrounded by, they can’t speak, but they can look back at people looking at them.
The Watchers’ presence suggests a sense of defiance. It’s like they’re standing up for the objects that can’t stand up for themselves, contributing to ongoing discussions about the Museum’s history and narrative.
- What Have We Here? British Museum until 9 February 2025
New collection visually remembers the Great Strike
Blood, Sweat and Tears— Photographs from the Great Miners’ Strike extensively documents the resistance, the struggle and the support for strike.
The 1984-85 miners’ strike was the longest national strike in British history. The striking communities withstood unprecedented police brutality and travesties of justice in the courts.
They endured poverty, hunger and media smears, but still they held firm for a year. This book collects photographs taken by those who were absolutely committed to the miners. It brings together images that have not been published for 40 years, and some that have never been published before.
The images have been collected to preserve the memory of the bloody resistance of the British state.
Heather Wood, former secretary of National Women Against Pit Closures, said “it’s a stark reminder of our battle with the state. We may have lost that battle, but we’ve not lost the war. We fight on.”
Former striking miner Ian Mitchell says, “The images in this book will shock you, move you and inspire you. They were taken by photographers who displayed real courage during the strike.
“Forty years on making these images available again is helping prevent the memory of the Great Miners’ Strike from being buried.”
- Available in November at minersstrike.com
