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

http://www.georgegarrettarchive.co.uk/

Questions and Comments