Williamson Gallery Opens Photo Show on Protest

The Williamson Art Gallery & Museum in Birkenhead opened a new photography exhibition on 23 October. Marc Davenant: REBELLION! looks at the place of protest in modern British culture. It is free and stays on the Slatey Road site until 20 February 2027.

Davenant was born and raised in the north east. He is an award-winning photographer who works with marginalised communities and uses his pictures to point at social inequality. His work has been shown across the UK, including at the Houses of Parliament, and abroad.

He took 12 years to complete Rebellion!. The show includes three of his winning photographs from the Portrait of Britain competition, which he has won twice. It also carries photographs and testimony from protesters and from people who may have been targeted by protests. Its subject is the wider social issues around protest, among them the breakdown of social cohesion in blighted post-industrial communities, which feeds dissatisfaction with the status quo.

Davenant's view

"This exhibition is a celebration of protest as an essential part of our cultural identity," Davenant says. "Virtually every human right we have today carries a watermark of those in the past who stood up to their rulers and said: 'enough is enough'."

He calls the right to protest peacefully "a precious but fragile flame" that needs to be nurtured and protected against those who would casually snuff it out.

Josh Mackarell, curator at the Williamson, describes the show as timely, since protest is so often in the news. In his words, Davenant's non-partisan view of the causes, actions and impacts of protests gives every viewer the chance to make up their own mind.

Earlier work and what comes next

This is not Davenant's first show at the gallery. In 2023 it hosted Outsiders, his documentary project on homelessness and substandard housing in contemporary Britain, which captured a snapshot across a six-year period.

After Birkenhead, Rebellion! will travel to Lichfield, Ynyshir in South Wales and Hereford. Davenant's next project is called 50 Years On. It explores the impact of five decades of neoliberalism and deindustrialisation on six post-industrial areas of Britain, and includes images from Ellesmere Port.

Source: Arts City Liverpool