The Before and After Vaults opened its doors on September 2nd. UK students were either starting a new school term, or looking ahead to starting or returning to college or university.
However over in Hong Kong, former student activist Joshua Wong, among the bravest of all Gen Z campaigners globally and a former Time Magazine Person of the Year, attended a court hearing.
While he awaits sentencing, potentially life imprisonment for standing up for Hongkongers’ constitutional rights, the Before and After Vaults is presenting a range of exhibits that tell the story of the 2014 Umbrella Revolution, the subsequent 2019-2020 protests, and the state of rights, freedoms and autonomy for Hong Kong currently.
Exhibits include artwork from Clara Cheung, an exiled pro-democracy leader from Hong Kong now living and working in Sheffield while continuing her campaigning work. We also have a collection of vivid photography from Matt Sheehan, who documented the 2014 revolution.
A range of artefacts illuminating environmental Gen Z protests have been donated to us by activists from Sweden and the UK.
Reclaim The Future, a direct action group that has campaigned with Sweden’s most famous activist, Greta Thunberg, has donated us posters from their mobilisation campaigns.
Aurora is a youth legal action group that is three years into a landmark lawsuit suing the Swedish government on human rights grounds for climate policies their lawyers argue are inadequate and illegal. They have shared with us their legal paper arguments along with photography of their protests outside parliament.
Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future campaign inspired the formation of both Aurora and Reclaim The Future, along with hybrid campaigns in the UK. Exhibits on display have been shared with us by the Generation 1.5 and No New Workers movements.
Arguably the most resonant episode in recent UK anti-racism activism came in Bristol, when the statue of Edward Colston, a man who had led the enslavement of Africans, was felled by Black Lives Matter protestors and rolled into the river.
The Countering Colston movement extended far beyond that historic and media-genic moment. At the Before and After Vaults we’re currently exhibiting artefacts that tell the story of a campaign led by 100 students who overcame two hundred years of resistance to change the name of their school. Colston Girls School became Montpelier High and items made by the pupils, along with photography and artefacts from the school across eras, can be found on display with our ‘X’ exhibition.
Chaos Unchained, a short film looking at how student protesters overthrew a decades old corrupt dictatorship in Sudan in 2018, is screened on loop for all visitors to absorb and learn from. The protagonist of the film, activist and filmmaker Mazin Urso, joins us for a talk on October 4.
We also have oral histories to listen to, interviews with the leaders of Black Lives Matter in the US, XR in the UK, the Wall Museum project in Palestine, Reclaim the Future in Sweden, and the Arab Reform Initiative in Lebanon / France.
Finally, for visitors who wish to test themselves as an activist and have an immersive, interactive experience to that end, we have curated an educational Escape Room challenge entitled Fight or Flight.
Participants are guided through six semi-fictional ‘levels’, or scenarios, from the Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong right through to a social housing sell-off resistance movement in Hastings, the home of the Before and After Vaults in the UK.
The 15-30 minute conceptual experience invites those taking part to make a series of judgement calls of the type faced by protestors standing up for their futures.
Challenging and immersive, the low-physicality journey has been experienced by those that have taken part as eye-opening, stimulating, educational and moving.
This feature is being developed and evolved further, but is open to experience now.
Tickets for the museum are available on the door or via our tickets page.