A Cry Through the Viewfinder: Steve McQueen and “Resistance” at Leeds Art Gallery
Determined faces chanting slogans in black-and-white, banners rising through foggy British streets, and a century of fury frozen within the gritty grain of film… Spearheaded by Oscar-winning filmmaker and conceptual artist Steve McQueen, “Resistance: How Protest Shaped Britain and Photography Shaped Protest” heads to Northern England’s cultural hub, Leeds Art Gallery, following its iterations in Margate and Edinburgh. Opening on November 6, 2026, and running through April 25, 2027, the exhibition promises a monumental visual archive reading modern British history through the lens of civil disobedience and social movements. An entry well worth marking in calendars, this selection does not merely display the past; it serves as a powerful reminder of the viewfinder’s transformative force in societal change.
Co-curated by Clarrie Wallis and Emma Lewis of Turner Contemporary, the exhibition unfolds a century-long chronology of resistance, spanning from radical Suffragette actions in 1903 to the anti-Iraq War protests that mobilized millions in 2003. McQueen brings to light social fractures that have been sidelined or glossed over by official historiography through imagery captured from the very heart of the street. What gives the selection its distinctly cinematic soul, however, is its dedicated focus on the analogue era—a period before digital cameras took over public space, when moments were etched directly into darkroom silver baths.
The photographers behind the lens are every bit as compelling as the atmosphere the exhibition promises. Vanley Burke’s iconic photographs documenting the struggle for existence among Black communities in Britain; Tish Murtha’s unvarnished gaze laying bare the precarities faced by the working class and youth; and Paul Trevor’s high-tension captures from the 1977 anti-racist blockade on New Cross Road… These masters are joined by luminaries of documentary photography such as Fay Godwin, Edith Tudor-Hart, Humphrey Spender, Christine Spengler, Andrew Testa, and Janine Wiedel. Merged with images by anonymous or forgotten eyes unearthed from archives, the curation transforms into a visual symphony of collective voices on the street.
In an era where visual culture is overwhelmingly consumed on smartphone screens, coming face-to-face with these analogue prints that carry the tangible aura of the chemical bath offers a mesmerizing experience of the liberating power of public space. For anyone wishing to witness how urban memory, political stance, and documentary photography intertwine, this memory space set up in Leeds throughout the upcoming autumn and spring is simply unmissable.
