Past Events

What Does Resistance Look Like? A Discussion of the Research Behind Resistance, an Exhibition Curated by Sir Steve McQueen and Turner Contemporary

Research Lunch – Emma Lewis

  • 1 November 2024
  • 1:00 – 2:00 pm
  • Paul Mellon Centre

Resistance, an exhibition curated by Steve McQueen, explores how photography shaped protest and protest shaped photography in twentieth-century Britain. Commencing in 1903 with the formation of the militant Suffragette group and concluding with protests against the war in Iraq in 2003, the project – which opens at Turner Contemporary in Spring 2025 before touring to National Galleries Scotland – will bring together over two hundred photographs from private and public collections across the UK, many of which have never before been seen.

Steve McQueen began discussing the idea for the exhibition with Clarrie Wallis, Director, Turner Contemporary in 2019. In 2021 Sarah Harrison, Political Producer, started mapping a timeline of events, and in January 2023 Emma Lewis, a photography specialist, joined the project as Curator.

In this lunchtime talk, Emma will discuss the research processes involved in such a far-ranging and ambitious exhibition. She will outline the collaborative aspects of political and art historical research including: working with an advisory committee; she will explore the considerations involved in identifying, reproducing and contextualising photographs of acts of resistance; and she will reflect on the ways in which she and the team have approached building a cohesive and compelling visual argument from vast amounts of material.

Resistance is supported by Ampersand Foundation and Dana and Albert R. Broccoli Charitable Foundation. Emma’s post is also supported by a Curatorial Research Grant from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

Image credit: © Andrew Testa

About the speaker

  • Emma Lewis is Curator, Turner Contemporary where she has curated the exhibitions Ed Clark (2023) and, with Melissa Blanchflower, Beatriz Milhazes: Maresias (2022). Forthcoming projects include Resistance (2025), an exhibition co-curated with Sir Steve McQueen. From 2013 to 2022 Emma was an assistant curator at Tate Modern, London where she organised exhibitions and permanent collection displays including Dora Maar (2019), Olafur Eliasson (2019), Portraits and Community (2019), Modigliani (2017) and Wolfgang Tillmans (2017). She was also responsible for the strategic acquisition of photographs into Tate’s national collection, with a particular focus on global feminism. Emma has written two books, Isms: Understanding Photography (2017) and Photography, A Feminist History (2021) and edited numerous exhibition catalogues including, as Guest Curator for The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, Sue Williamson & Lebohang Kganye: Tell Me What You Remember (2023).