Fighting Resistance 2017 - Salford Museum and Art Gallery and Working Class Movement Library 27th July 2017

In Service  1918 - 2017 James Bloomfield

Salford Museum and Art Gallery & Ordsall Hall, Salford | 31st July - 10th November 2017 | Launch 27th July The Working Class Movement Library 6.30 - 9pm

To mark the centenary of the Battle of Passchendaele, artist James Bloomfield has been resident at Salford Museum & Art Gallery and the Working Class Movement Library. Delving into this fabulous rich archive, Bloomfield has created a truly special piece of work that engages with the audience directly and asks us to look at our history and the global legacy of the war to end all wars. 

The outcome of this research is the creation of 226 commemorative ceramic plates. The plates reference each conflict and the number of fatalities for that conflict. Instead of being in display cases or on the gallery walls, the plates will be placed into service in the Gallery Cafe, presenting the findings of Bloomfield’s research directly to visitors.

The plates will be used as part of the regular dinner service at Salford Museum & Art Gallery‘s bustling Café and in Ordsall Hall’s coffee shop. The plates will be presented for service on 31 July and later decommissioned on 10 November to coincide with the centenary of the battle of Passchendaele, which runs over these exact dates (3months and 6 days).

“When I started this project I didn’t know where the research would take me, I especially didn’t think I would be hand decorating 226 plates each plate to mark a global conflict since the end of the war to end all wars. I want the work to become part of the domestic, our consciousness to remember those that have been involved in conflict or who still are “ says Bloomfield of the project.

Signalling the launch of In Service, Professor Paul Rogers (Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University) will give a special talk on "New Wars and How to Prevent Them. Giving insight into the three core issues facing the world and our approaches to these issues.

In Service has been funded and/or supported by Arts Council England, Salford Museum and Art Gallery, Salford Remembers Fund, Salford Community Leisure and Salford City Council’s programme to commemorate the centenary of World War One, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund .

 

Future Wars and How to Prevent them

Thursday 27th July|6 - 9pm , Working Class Movement Library, Salford

Join us for the launch of this brand new solo exhibition , which will include an introduction to the project and insights into the work from James Bloomfield and a talk from Professor Paul Rogers on "New Wars and How to Prevent Them" For more information on the event, including booking details please visit www.jamesbloomfield.co.uk

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Visiting the Collection at Salford Museum and Art Gallery with Peter Ogilvie- 6th October

Today I had a meeting at Salford Museum and art Gallery to see Peter Ogilvie the Collections Manager and the gatekeeper to the vaults. I’ll be honest with you I didn’t quite now what to expect when I arrived and was a little anxious about the visit. 

 It took the receptionist around 10 minutes to locate Peter and I thought at first that he had forgotten about the meeting it was only later on that I realised why it had taken so long to track him down. After a warm handshake I was taken down some stairs and the steel safe door was opened with a large bunch of keys . Peter tells me that the museum opened in 1850 and was the first unconditionally free public library,  and didn’t have a collection as such and the collection has just grown over time.

 The first Room as you may expect was racked out with floor to ceiling paintings, from 20^th Century British Moderns to Victorian Portraits in Gilt frames, to a collection of  local Miners paintings given therapeutic art once the pits had closed. Many of the paintings appear in the "Your Paintings “ website (now Artuk)which lists all the paintings in the UK in public collections. Peter tells me that it took them the best part of a year to photograph all of Salfords paintings.

 The next room contained at least as many water colours and works on paper, many from Northern Artists and whole rack of local history paintings containing local scenes and areas of local importance. I didn’t realise but Salford Museum has a remit to take in such works , or objects that have local importance or significance and I suppose this is why it was important for them to secure the Pilkingtons tile Archive.

After this second room I was impressed by the sheer number of paintings, it was only on entering the next section of the collection that I began to feel overwhelmed. A room full of social history objects, industrial objects and machinery, a pair of what looked like ancient“inuit” ski’s, a dolly tub, even a soda stream. This section was populated with objects that have been donated to the museum by the public, objects that are significant to a time in history, this theme carried on to the next huge room floor to ceiling racking contain intriguing archive boxes of costumes, dress uniforms, tri-corn hats, doctors bags, childrens toys.

  This room then spilled out to house another museums collection that closed down in Salford some time ago, lots of childrens toys and games, from the Victorian era right up to the eighties. This room then led on to a furniture room, and then an occupation room where objects are field by the profession, doctor, chemist, carpenter etc. By this point I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things, and the final room was cupboards wall to wall with ceramics, glass and pewter ware.

The collection has over 120,000 items at the last count and this is spread throughout the basement of the whole of the Museum and Art gallery. It was on leaving the collection that realised why it had taken 10 minutes to track Peter down in the labyrinth of History underneath the museum. 

What struck me was the sheer weight of objects and the need to store them as part of our shared history, many of these items will never see the light of day again, catalogued and boxed until somebody takes an interest and asks for a viewing. I wondered if this is just another aspect to our society for hoarding, consumerism and placing value on material objects, but then each object has a story and its truths are just waiting to be unlocked or re-told. I will be visiting again soon to pull out some WW1 era objects that might spark some ideas or take my project down a different path.

 

Tour of Working Class Movement Library - Tuesday 16th August

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For those of you who haven’t been to the Working Class Movement library on Chapel Street I urge you to go for two reasons. Firstly for the brilliant story about how it was formed and how it ended up located across from the University. Secondly to learn something about the history of the working people, your history this is the history of my parents and grandparents and there parents. It also houses some of the best collections of social literature that I have seen. 

I had a great tour of the collection by Lynette Cawthra the manager of the library, I was privileged to spend time in the Thomas Paine room where there is the largest collection of his writings in the UK  a gift from a prominent collector. I have been trying to track down the original pamphlet “Common Sense” for some time now and there it was (this is the pamphlet that was banned as it was so incendiary and sparked the American revolution to throw out the Brits)  I saw rooms and rooms of peace pamphlets, books on socialism, warfare, nuclear disarmament, I could quite easily have sat in any of the rooms and have my reading material for the next 50 years ! 

There is also a great ceramic collection in one of the back rooms, containing many commemorative plates, tankards and jugs, sparking ideas for possible pieces for my WW1 Fighting resistance project. What struck me was the creation of a collection that was formed by two individuals with a passion for books on working class history, and the foresight to protect this. How much of our history is white washed or green washed, hidden from us or re-written to support the ruling classes. This library is a beacon for the common man and a start point for what I believe to be a great adventure.

For more information on the Working Class Movement Library please click here:
http://www.wcml.org.uk/

Arthur Gardiner (CO) my new personal hero - 22nd September 2016

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This morning I managed to grab breakfast at Salford Museum and Art Gallery and find time to finish the book I have been reading on Conscientious Objectors (CO’s) in Huddersfield by Cyril Pearce. It is a truly illuminating book focusing on one communities support and the reasons behind the large proportion of CO’s in that area.

What it made me realise is that at the turn of the century the “workers” were extremely well connected and supported through different organisations, political and religious parties, social clubs, unions and trade guilds, something that I feel that we have lost over the last forty years. The overriding feeling was of the bravery in face of the weight of a nation, peers and propaganda to stand up and say that you would not fight! My new Hero is Arthur Gardiner who point blank refused conscription on the grounds that he did not want to murder a fellow worker in Germany:

“ I am 26 years of age and I work as a wool and cotton dyer. I cannot conscientiously undertake combatant or non combatant military service. For a number of years I have devoted my time and energy, both publicly and privately to the economic and moral uplift of humanity. I am opposed to all forms of militarism. I believe it to be a detriment to the welfare of all nations “

Arthur Gardiner at his tribunal.

The problem being that conscription was brought in with The Military Service Act of 1916 to compel single men between the ages of 18 and 40 to some form of military service. This became law on the 27^th January my birthday! next year I turn 40 and will be celebrating the fact that I will no longer be deemed fit for military service due to my age!...maybe I have to wait till 41? 




more informaton Cyril Pearce and the Pearce register of Conscientious Objectors here :
http://www.1914.org/news/cos/


more information on Arthur Gardiner here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01s6fbd