Resistance: 'compelling' show captures a century of protest
Turner prizewinner Steve McQueen curates 'fascinating' photography exhibition in Margate

"Resistance" takes visitors on a "voyage of discovery in black and white", said Nancy Durrant in The Times. Conceived by Oscar-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen and curated in collaboration with Clarrie Wallis, the "fascinating" exhibition explores 100 years of protest in Britain through photography.
The show begins with the suffrage movement in 1903 and concludes with the anti-Iraq war marches a century later. But the "deeply researched" exhibition also shines a light on "long forgotten protests" like the mass hunger marches that took place in London during the Great Depression, and the Headscarf Campaign led by women in Hull to improve safety for fishermen following the 1968 trawler disaster.
Throughout the show, the "tone remains pathologically cool and resolutely factual, almost to a fault". In the end, however, it's "hard" not to be "moved" by the powerful images.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
My "favourite" photo is an "intimate" shot by Keith Pattison of a striking pitman and his family gathered in their living room, said Gabrielle Schwarz in The Telegraph. They're watching Arthur Scargill, the president of the National Union of Mineworkers on TV; the "bearded face of Karl Marx" looks down from a poster on the wall. "Resistance isn't only a matter of big dramatic confrontations: it's part of everyday life."
However an "excess of caution" means the last two decades of history are left out. "Live issues" that could still be considered "controversial" like Gaza or the climate crisis are glaringly omitted. "Blurry phone snaps" wouldn't be as "beautiful" as the "artful black-and-white film prints". But perhaps "resistance should look messier – less palatable and more dangerous – than it does here".
Still, it's a "compelling" show, said Adrian Searle in The Guardian. From "anonymous press images" to "personal shots" and "surreptitious surveillance images", "Resistance" is an exhibition of "fractured continuities and swerving vantage points".
All of the prints "invite close looking" and it can be easy to get "caught up in the incidental details" like the "policeman wheeling his bike behind the Jarrow marchers" or the "knock-kneed" child looking at Christine Spengler as she takes a photo of a "young British soldier on a Belfast corner in 1970".
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
"The stories bolster the images and keep the whole thing alive."
Resistance is at Turner Contemporary, Margate, until 1 June
Irenie Forshaw is a features writer at The Week, covering arts, culture and travel. She began her career in journalism at Leeds University, where she wrote for the student newspaper, The Gryphon, before working at The Guardian and The New Statesman Group. Irenie then became a senior writer at Elite Traveler, where she oversaw The Experts column.
-
Interpol arrests hundreds in Africa-wide cybercrime crackdown
IN THE SPOTLIGHT A series of stings disrupts major cybercrime operations as law enforcement estimates millions in losses from schemes designed to prey on lonely users
-
How to ditch ‘buy now, pay later’ debt
the explainer Recent changes mean BNPL will soon affect your credit score
-
Why Trump is so focused on getting a Nobel Peace Prize
The Explainer A recent poll found that three-quarters of Americans say Trump doesn’t deserve the award
-
Art review: Man Ray: When Objects Dream
Feature Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, through Feb. 1
-
Marie Antoinette Style at the V&A: a ‘magnificent’ exhibition
The Week Recommends The UK’s first show dedicated solely to the French queen explores the complex woman behind the ‘bling’
-
8 riveting museum exhibitions on view in the fall — and well into 2026
The Week Recommends See Winslow Homer rarities and Black art reimagined
-
Rachel Jones: Gated Canyons – ‘riotously colourful’ works from an ‘exhilarating’ painter
The Week Recommends The 34-year-old is the first artist to take over Dulwich Picture Gallery’s main space
-
Millet: Life on the Land – an 'absorbing' exhibition
The Week Recommends Free exhibition at the National Gallery showcases the French artist's moving paintings of rural life
-
Al fresco art: the UK's best sculpture parks
The Week Recommends Soak up the scenery with a stroll through these open-air galleries
-
Celebrating Cézanne in Aix-en-Provence
The Week Recommends The beautiful city is paying tribute to its most famous son with a series of cultural events
-
Andy Goldsworthy: Fifty Years – a 'beautiful and raw' exhibition
The Week Recommends This superb career retrospective in Edinburgh brings together more than 200 works from the misunderstood artist