SPARK #27: The Right Side of History
Event
SPARK #27: The Right Side of History
12 October 2024
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Manchester Museum (top floor)
Artist and SPARK coordinator Jane Lawson hosts this practical solidarity session at Manchester Museum, making cards for people imprisoned for peaceful environmental protest.
Since changes to the law brought in by the previous government, those taking action in the UK against the intensifying climate and ecological crisis are increasingly facing lengthy jail sentences. At the time of writing, there are 25 people in prison for exercising their right to peacefully raise concerns about the existential threats posed by the climate crisis and the failure of their own government to take adequate steps in response.
With climate impacts worsening, and more and more evidence coming to light about the tactics used by the fossil fuel industry to prevent meaningful action being taken on climate change, it could be argued that the wrong people are behind bars. In the words of writer Naomi Klein, “In a world that was right-side up, you would be celebrated as the ones who helped break the spell that is setting our world on fire.”
In support of prisoners who we believe are on the right side of history, SPARK members will turn collages from a previous SPARK session into postcards to send to inmates. Bring something to cut out with and something to stick with! And bring poems and sayings to put on the cards.
The session will take place in the top floor classroom at Manchester Museum. This space is wheelchair accessible.
Jane Lawson
Jane Lawson has spent the past twelve years working with fungi to loosen the grip of capitalist realism on our collective imagination. There is still some way to go. She also makes diagrams to help her understand the processes and structures that shape our world and possible pathways to an environmentally and socially just future. She recently completed MA Art and Ecology at Goldsmiths, where she delved into various ways of being fungal and made a diagrammatic environmental policy.
Jane was part of the ten-strong group that co-curated Manchester Art Gallery’s Climate Justice gallery in 2021/2, using the Gallery’s collection to highlight narratives around colonialism and extractivism. She has worked for Castlefield Gallery in Manchester since 2012 and in her role as the gallery’s Artist Environmental Lead she provides admin support for SPARK. Recent projects include a poster as part of Jade Montserrat’s commission Tender Order (for Precarious Straits, 2021); Being Fungal (UK Fungus day event for Heart of Glass, 2023); Detox to Delish (part of A Modest Show, 2022).
SPARK
The SPARK network was set up by Castlefield Gallery in 2022 to facilitate a Greater Manchester/North West-based network of artists wanting to intervene in the climate crisis. The gallery initiated SPARK in response to the high demand for places on the 2021/22 SUSTAIN programme focussed on low carbon artmaking. SPARK #25 follows on from the first twenty-four SPARK sessions at Manchester Art Gallery, Rogue, The Birley (Preston), Eccles Friends Meeting House, Manchester Museum, AIR Gallery, Paradise Works, Editional Studio, Cadishead and Little Woolden Moss, Gallery Oldham, the John Rylands Library, Dunham Massey, Lindow Moss and Castlefield Viaduct. SPARK recently had a group exhibition, also called SPARK, and events programme at Rogue Studios.
Image: banners by Di Terry, at Trafalgar Square Extinction Rebellion protest in 2019; photographed by John-Paul Brown
