Dr Harriet Atkinson is a Senior Lecturer in History of Art and Design at the University of Brighton. Art on the Streets, a globally-acclaimed documentary that Atkinson co-directed with Jane Dibblin and narrated by Michael Rosen, and made with charity Four Corners, was launched in September 2023. The film has since been shown in Berlin, Porto, Izmir, San Francisco, Bremen, Brighton, London, Harlow, Bristol, Berkshire and beyond. It has won three awards for Best Documentary at Luleå International Film Festival Sweden 2023, Bridge of Peace Film Awards 2023 and California International Shorts Festival 2023. The film has also received over a dozen nominations at international film festivals, the entire list can be viewed here.

Harriet was Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Leadership Fellow and Principal Investigator (2019-2023), leading the project ‘”The Materialisation of Persuasion”: Modernist Exhibitions in Britain for Propaganda and Resistance, 1933 to 1953’. The film is a vital part of the dissemination and delivery of this project, which investigates how exhibitions mounted from 1933 to 1953 in public spaces, from church halls to train stations, were designed to communicate messages of propaganda and resistance. For the film, Atkinson focuses on the For Liberty exhibition mounted in 1943 in the bombed-out John Lewis department store on London’s Oxford Street. The film explores art’s role in providing a voice, a platform and a meeting point in the midst of conflict, themes which resonate today with audiences all over the world. For Liberty was created by the anti-fascist artists’ collective, Artists International Association, and was an audacious show aiming to demonstrate the values people were fighting for. Central to the exhibition were many artists who had recently arrived in Britain having fled the Nazi threat. The film follows some of those who took part, including Oskar Kokoschka, Peter Laszlo Peri, Betty Rea and designer F. H. K. Henrion. The trailer of the film can be found on Vimeo and until July 2025, it is being screened daily at Tate Britain as part of the exhibition Artists International Association: the first decade.

Film poster for ‘Art on the Streets’ featuring installation of For Liberty, 1943. Image from University of Brighton Design Archives F. H. K. Henrion collection, courtesy Henrion Estate.

Earlier this year, Atkinson won the University of Brighton’s Research and Knowledge Exchange Excellence Award at the One Brighton Awards 2023-2024. Harriet was nominated for the above-mentioned project in the Research and Knowledge Exchange Excellence category. Harriet has also produced and hosted a podcast series titled Graphic Interventions that investigates political statements made through posters, banners and zines. The nomination praised Harriet’s creative approach to her role as Enterprise Co-Lead for the School, bringing a wealth of experience in the policy sector to engaging both University staff and external stakeholders in this area. The nomination describes Harriet’s past experience, current research and knowledge exchange activities as having a “significant impact” in raising the profile of research and knowledge exchange in the School. The AHRC project resulted in the book Showing resistance: propaganda and Modernist exhibitions in Britain, 1933-53 (Manchester University Press, 2024) which is out this week!

Atkinson received her 3D-printed star trophy from Vice Chancellor Professor Debra Humphris and Pro Vice Chancellor for Research and Excellence Professor Rusi Jaspal at a ceremony on 4th July 2024.

Showing Resistance discusses the overarching question of how did exhibitions become a vital tool for public communication in early twentieth-century Britain? The book reveals how exhibitions were taken up by activists and politicians from 1933 to 1953, becoming manifestos, weapons of war and a means of signalling political solidarities. Drawing on dozens of examples mounted in empty shops, workers’ canteens, station ticket halls and beyond, this richly illustrated book shows how this overlooked form was created by significant makers including artists Paul Nash, John Heartfield and Oskar Kokoschka, architect Erno Goldfinger and photographer Edith Tudor-Hart. Showing Resistance is the first study of exhibitions as communications in mid-twentieth century Britain. Get your own copy of the book here.

Atkinson is currently working on a new short documentary film about FHK Henrion, co-directed with Sue Breakell, Director at the UoB Design Archives, which is due out later this year.