northen collaboration conference 2014: popular culture by emily parsons
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Popular Culture: Using special collections and archives
to build cultural partnershipsand promote civic engagement.
Emily Parsons, Liverpool John Moores University
Overview
• Background
• Programme of external engagement
• Case study 1: England’s Erotic Dream
• Case Study 2: Writing on the Wall
• LJMU SpecialCollectionsand Archives
• Popular culture: music, theatre,fashioncounterculture
• Support research andteaching
• Civic engagement andcultural partnerships
External Engagement
England’s Erotic Dream
Outline
• LJMU partnership with Homotopia
• The England’s Erotic Dream exhibition
• The practicalities of exposure
• Evaluation and follow-up
England’s Dreaming: The Jon Savage Archive
Adventures in Wonderland: The Falcon Stuart and X-Ray Spex Archive
LJMU/Homotopia partnership
• Long-standingpartnership andjoint activities
• Luca Bartozzi’s2011 degree show:interest fromHomotopia in a public exhibition
• Fitted well withLJMU’s strategy
The exhibition andthe practicalities of exposure
Luca’s curatorial themes
• Gender, identity,playfulness
• Re-examine imageswith a queer gaze
• Subversion of the heteronormativetake on sexuality
• A different view of theperformative elementof punk Interview with Luca on the Homotopia web site:
http://www.homotopia.net/festival-item/englands-erotic-dream/
MetQuarter Liverpool
• Homotopia Festival2013
• Pop-up gallery inshopping centre
• Liaison with Centremanagement teamon content andpresentation in apublic space
Pop-up gallery space
“Difficult” images?
Only image removed
• The “Jo Malone customer”
• Words: “rent boys” were OK,“erotic” was not
• Support from LJMUmanagers and the marketingteam
• Consumerism and image…
Adverts running autumn 2013
• No complaints
• 799 visitors
• Curiosity andcomments
Evaluation
Homotopia
• Influence on programming
• Talks to students in different disciplines
• Interest in futurecollaborations with LJMUincluding larger-scaleexhibition
LJMU
• Build on strengths:• Involve students• Resilience• Being braver
• Public money =public access
• Explore more“hidden histories”
• Born Seacombe 1896, family soon moved to the Dingle
• Early radical activism: 1911 dockers strike
• Stowaway, then merchant seaman, spent both Wars at sea
• New York 1920s: IWW and early writing• 1930s: unemployment, activism, writing
and Orwell• Founder member, Merseyside Left
Theatre/Unity Theatre• Family life, died 1966
Who is George Garrett?
Michael Murphy, Nottingham Trent University, 1999
A first look at the archive
Adding to the Archive
• A Stoker with Punch
• Seaman, Syndicalist and Scribe
• On the Parish
• Subterranean Theatre
16-week evening class
The Garretteers
• Catalogue the archive
• Digitise the archive
• Garrett web site, timeline, book, exhibition, installation and film
• Launch and programme of events during WOWFestival May 2014
Project aims January – May 2014
LJMU student installation
On tour
Garrett Exhibition, Central Library
Launch Event, Central Library
Questions and Comments
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