Radical Objects

Radical Object: Printer’s Type from the Thames Foreshore

Peter Wollweber 4 February 20255 February 2025

If you go down to the Thames today, you're sure of a big surprise - printer's type. Peter Wollweber unpacks its radical history.

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Radical Objects: Transregional Chinese-language Children’s Magazines

Allan Pang 6 June 202410 June 2024

Allan Pang explores the diverse and conflicting depictions of Chinese and world history in transregional children's magazines.

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Radical Objects: The Pot and Pan

Matthew Kerry 12 March 202411 March 2024

Matthew Kerry explores how the humble pot and pan have become powerful tools for protestors.

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Radical Object: Charity Shop Painting

Vera Mackie 20 February 20245 December 2024

A small charity shop painting illuminates Australia's history of settler colonialism.

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Radical Object: The Dress of a Leeds Suffragette

Sophia Lambert 20 June 202316 June 2023

What can the dress of a suffragette tell us about radical feminist politics and fashion during the early twentieth century? Sophia Lambert explores.

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Radical Objects: Che Guevara’s Africa Notebook

Aidan Ratchford 14 March 202328 August 2023

Previously untranslated Che Guevara notebook sheds fresh light on the Cuban-African relation and the life of the famed revolutionary.

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Sharpening Skills

Paul Warde 14 November 202220 December 2022

What can tools - for cutting, sharpening or carrying - tell us about the nature of work in the past? Paul Warde on how the skills that tools embodied can nuance narratives of modernity and productivity.

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Radical Object: An Early Medieval Prosthetic Hand

Charles West 26 September 202219 January 2023

A simple prosthetic hand demonstrates care for the physically impaired in early medieval Europe, but does it also say something about the political nature of that care?

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Radical Object: The Blue Angel (1930)

Marybeth Hamilton 9 May 20224 January 2023

Marlene Dietrich's sultry sexuality is the best-remembered part of the 1930 film The Blue Angel, yet embedded in the film and its afterlife is a radical history of antifascist resistance. Marybeth Hamilton explores.

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Radical Objects: The London Women’s Handbook

Lucy Brownson 5 May 202213 January 2023

What can The London Women's Handbook reveal about the Greater London Council and radical feminist organising? Lucy Brownson explores the 1986 Handbook which captures a turning point in British political and social life.

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Radical Objects: Josiah Wedgwood’s anti-slavery medallion

Georgia Haseldine 20 April 202229 October 2022

In the late eighteenth century Wedgwood’s medallion rallied people to the radical cause of abolition. Can it still inspire radical change today? Georgia Haseldine discusses the medallion’s historic radical power and re-making the…

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Radical Objects: An Anonymous Letter

Hannah Telling 16 March 20224 January 2023

What can the arrival of an anonymous letter to a local police station tell us about the administration of justice in nineteenth-century Scotland? Hannah Telling discusses the case surrounding the discovery of a woman's body in 1853, and…

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Radical Objects: Eliza Sharples’ Letters to Thomas Cooper

Madeleine Goodall 14 March 20224 January 2023

Madeleine Goodall discusses the radical life of Eliza Sharples, whose letters to freethinking poet Thomas Cooper in the mid-19th century depict an idealistic figure struggling to survive.

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Radical Objects: Anarchist Books

Anna Regener 11 February 20224 January 2023

What does the history of anarchist books tell us about the diffusion of subversive ideas across national borders and long time spans? Anna Regener maps how state suppression has failed to prevent the 'worlding' of anarchist literature

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Radical Object: Programme of the Evenings Musical Performances at Warrawang

Brianna Robertson-Kirkland 12 January 202218 December 2023

What does an elegant, hand-written programme tell us about the harsh realities of emigration, and the colonisation of Australia in the nineteenth century? How does it exemplify the mindset of settlers, who assumed they needed to import…

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Radical Object: Potato Planter at Frating Hall Farm

Ken Worpole 20 October 202120 January 2023

How did Russian anarchism, Teesside socialism and Jewish phenomenology find a home in rural Essex? Ken Worpole delves into the fragile archive of an influential pacifist settlement at Frating Hall farm.

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Electric Light

Samson Lim 6 October 202120 January 2023

Why are displays of electric light an effective way to challenge inequality? Samson Lim explores the history of electrification in Thailand, and the way in which infrastructure itself became a site for both elite expressions of power and…

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Radical Object: The Medieval Face Mask

Sadegh Attari 14 September 202129 October 2022

What can the medieval face mask tell us about the role that medical face coverings play, not only in prevention of illness, but also as a signifier of identities and anxieties? Sadegh Attari explores how medical, cultural, and religious…

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Radical Object: Campaign for Women’s Ordination Badges

Grace Heaton 16 August 202120 January 2023

The campaign for women’s ordination dominated discussions about the Church of England’s gender politics during the twentieth century. Grace Heaton examines the badges produced by campaigners and untangles some of the powerful emotions…

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Radical Objects: ‘These are not ordinary women’

Urvi Khaitan 9 August 202129 October 2022

Urvi Khaitan explores how US Air Force photos reveal the hidden history of female labour in World War II India.

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Radical Object: Half Moon Gallery Comments Book

Ruby Rees-Sheridan 19 July 20215 November 2022

What can a gallery comments book tell us about the role radical photography can play in social change? Ruby Rees-Sheridan discusses the Half Moon Photography Workshop Comments Book as a radical object.

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Radical Objects: Irish Women Emigrants’ Letters

Beth Kitson 28 June 202129 October 2022

At the end of a long day of physical domestic work, Margaret Nagle, an Irish-born domestic servant living in 1860s […]

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Radical Object: Fergusson Vaginal Speculum

Lisa Godson 23 June 202120 January 2023

What does the vaginal speculum have to do with power? How does the history of this instrument help us to understand how bodies have been understood, policed, and governed? Can this object be reclaimed? Lisa Godson explores.

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Radical Object: Richard Carlile’s Little Hammer

Robert Forder 14 June 202120 January 2023

How does a small gavel on display in the offices of Britain's National Secular Society commemorate past struggles for free thought and free speech? Robert Forder explores.

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Radical Objects: “Dear Comrade Angela”

Maurice Casey 19 April 202120 January 2023

Maurice Casey explores letters sent to Angela Davis from Britain and Ireland during her imprisonment in California in 1971-72.

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Radical Objects: The Obelisk of Axum and the Complexities of Restitution

Duncan McLean 8 April 202129 October 2022

What powers of legitimacy do physical representations of the past hold? Duncan McLean explores the journey and repatriation of a radical object, the Obelisk of Axum, from Abyssinia to Italy to Ethiopia - its return seemingly affirming…

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Radical Objects: Alan Winnington’s Camera & Documenting the Daejeon Massacre

David Miller 29 March 202129 October 2022

Long-unpublished photographs taken by journalist Alan Winnington in South Korea are now providing crucial evidence for the 1950 Daejeon Massacre. David Miller explores

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Radical Object: Charles Bradlaugh’s Study by Walter Sickert

Robert Forder 17 March 202129 October 2022

Walter Sickert's portrait of Charles Bradlaugh, atheist, republican, and birth control pioneer, weaves together disparate threads of late nineteenth century British radical history. Robert Forder explores.

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Radical Object: Gingerbread

Edmund Wareham 7 December 202020 January 2023

As the festive season approaches and thoughts turn to gifts and treats, Edmund Wareham explains how gingerbread could be a Radical Object in medieval & early modern Germany.

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Radical Object: The Photos of an East London Suffragette

Jane McChrystal 9 November 202020 January 2023

Jane McChrystal surveys Norah Smyth's engrossing photographs: a powerful record of women's Suffrage activism, campaigning and social justice in East London.

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Radical Objects

What

Where

When

Series

Radical Object: Printer’s Type from the Thames Foreshore

Radical Objects: Transregional Chinese-language Children’s Magazines

Radical Objects: The Pot and Pan

Radical Object: Charity Shop Painting

Radical Object: The Dress of a Leeds Suffragette

Radical Objects: Che Guevara’s Africa Notebook

Sharpening Skills

Radical Object: An Early Medieval Prosthetic Hand

Radical Object: The Blue Angel (1930)

Radical Objects: The London Women’s Handbook

Radical Objects: Josiah Wedgwood’s anti-slavery medallion

Radical Objects: An Anonymous Letter

Radical Objects: Eliza Sharples’ Letters to Thomas Cooper

Radical Objects: Anarchist Books

Radical Object: Programme of the Evenings Musical Performances at Warrawang

Radical Object: Potato Planter at Frating Hall Farm

Electric Light

Radical Object: The Medieval Face Mask

Radical Object: Campaign for Women’s Ordination Badges

Radical Objects: ‘These are not ordinary women’

Radical Object: Half Moon Gallery Comments Book

Radical Objects: Irish Women Emigrants’ Letters

Radical Object: Fergusson Vaginal Speculum

Radical Object: Richard Carlile’s Little Hammer

Radical Objects: “Dear Comrade Angela”

Radical Objects: The Obelisk of Axum and the Complexities of Restitution

Radical Objects: Alan Winnington’s Camera & Documenting the Daejeon Massacre

Radical Object: Charles Bradlaugh’s Study by Walter Sickert

Radical Object: Gingerbread

Radical Object: The Photos of an East London Suffragette