Alan Dearling makes his first visit to the impressive collection of exhibitions and artefacts at this adventurous gallery on the edge of Rawtonstall in the Lancashire Pennines.
I had heard about The Whitaker from artist friends around my home area on the West Yorkshire/Lancashire border. And very recently I learned that the staff from the museum headed to The Blackpool Tower ballroom for the ‘Visit Lancashire awards’. As they commented after the ceremony: “We are overjoyed to share that The Whitaker Museum and Art Gallery took home the trophy for Best Cultural Venue/Organisation in Lancashire!”
What I found inspirational was the really organic and lively mix of local history, art, commentary on social and political change. And it’s not just in one gallery, it pervades as a thread of consciousness throughout.
The first room I entered houses the ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’. Indeed, the pieces on display evoke the particular peculiarities of Victoriana. It’s a mixture of the strange, the charming and the down-right ghoulish and macabre. And the signage and accompanying notes in this gallery and in the one housing the Whitaker collections of taxidermy, provide thought-provoking commentaries and offer explanations of how societal beliefs change and environmental principles along with them.
Contagious Acts had just been opened when I visited. It is a brand-new exhibition by acclaimed artist, Jamie Holman, and is set to run until Sunday 1st June 2025.
It’s challenging, and is described as an ‘immersive public installation’. It kicked off, with an opening participation event when the public were invited to fill one gallery space with marbles to make up part of the Contagious Acts exhibition. It certainly got me thinking about the relationship between workers, mills, power, politics, the police and government.
Here’s how it is described: “Contagious Acts interrogates the heritage, rituals and aesthetics of gathering—whether on the medieval battlefield, the dance floor, the factory floor, or the football stadium. These spaces remain battlegrounds of power and protest while also functioning as sites of cultural production and resistance.”
It’s very much about looking at history from the bottom up. Working Class histories and struggles. Collective political action and protest. The centrepiece of Contagious Acts is entitled ‘The Forlorn Hope’. The Whitaker have described it as,
“Towering almost four metres high, it is both imposing and symbolic. Holman references historical reports of rioters using marbles to disrupt charging police horses.
The horse in the exhibition represents the state, the upper classes, and how society is governed. The marbles also represent the idea of “play”, as a form of resistance.”
Coincidentally, the Weavers’ Uprising Bicentennial Committee’s [WUBC] ‘Rise Up’ banner has now been permanently housed in the museum and gallery. The WUBC banner commemorates nearly 200 years since The Lancashire Rising, one of the most significant events of early nineteenth century Britain. The banner has been designed by textile artist, James Fox.
Here’s how it is described in terms of its relevance and historical significance: “The 200 years commemoration acknowledges four days from the 24th-27th April 1826 where tens of thousands of ordinary people rose up in protest about their severe poverty and growing threat of mass starvation. Following the financial collapse after the December 1825 banking crisis, where wages were low, unemployment was high, food prices were rising and the workhouses were full, handloom weavers and other local people made a desperate attempt to draw attention to their plight by destroying virtually all the power looms in the area.”
All in all, the Whitaker Gallery and Museum is a nicely curated set of spaces. Thoughtful in its presentations and very thought-provoking indeed.
