Jane Dibblin (Director), Harriet Atkinson (Director), Paul Henrion (son of F.H.K. Henrion) and Carla Mitchell (Four Corners).

Art on the Streets is being screened daily at Tate Britain’s Marie-Louise von Montesiczky Archive Gallery until July 2025 as part of an exhibition about Artists International Association. Art on the Streets‘ co-directors, Jane Dibblin and Harriet Atkinson attended the opening of the exhibition in late June 2024.

 

How did exhibitions become a vital tool for public communication in early twentieth century Britain? Harriet’s new book Showing resistance: propaganda and modernist exhibitions in Britain, 1933-53, published by Manchester University Press in July 2024, 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.

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Harriet was thrilled to win the University of Brighton’s Research and Knowledge Exchange Excellence Award at the One Brighton Awards 2023-2024. She received her specially designed 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.

Harriet was nominated in the Research and Knowledge Exchange Excellence category for her project The Materialisation of Persuasion: Modernist Exhibitions in Britain for Propaganda and Resistance 1933 to 1953. This was in recognition of Harriet’s work in producing internationally acclaimed film, Art on the Streets, co-directed with Jane Diblin and narrated by Michael Rosen, and made with charity Four Corners. The film was launched in September 2023 and has won several awards and nominations for international film festivals. Harriet has also produced a podcast series titled Graphic Interventions, and was recently the AHRC Leadership Fellow.

The nomination says: “Harriet’s historical research and its wider impact beyond academic circles deserves recognition for the way in which it evidences excellence in leading research, delivering outstanding research projects that hold currency internationally in terms of showcasing resistance during wartime and the power of art, a story that has Harriet’s research has excavated.”

The nomination also praises 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.

Harriet says of her nomination: “Research, for me, is a long, slow and laborious process, meted out through teaching, conversations, visits, reading and writing, over many years. I’ve been lucky enough to produce my recent research in many varied forms, including books, chapters, podcasts and documentary films and the university has supported me in all these endeavours in countless ways, for which I’m incredibly grateful. This award feels like another very welcome encouragement. It is a huge honour to receive it: thank you.”