Art Work by Emily Johns
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www.emilyjohns.org.uk

Global resistance to WW1 celebrated at HAF

A free talk exploring resistance to the First World War across the globe will take place at Hastings Arts Forum (36 Marina, St Leonards-on-Sea, TN38 0BU) on Friday 9 November at 7pm.

The talk, which will tell the story of German resistance to the war, as well the British campaigners who fought to end Britain’s post-war starvation blockade of Germany, accompanies an exhibition, ‘The World is My Country’, by St Leonards artist Emily Johns, celebrating the people and movements that resisted the First World War.

The exhibition runs from Tuesday 30 October to 11 November. It features the original paintings from ‘The World is My Country’ people’s history poster series by Johns, which has toured 40 venues including the Women’s Museum in Fürth-Burgfarrnbach, the Women’s Museum in Bonn, Senate House Library, the University of Cambridge’s Festival of Ideas and the Scottish Storytelling Centre. The exhibition also features eight specially-commissioned poems and songs, including work by poets Alan Brownjohn, Anna Robinson and Mererid Hopwood.

Stories highlighted include: the German soldier who risked death to expose the Armenian genocide; the Maori princess who led a campaign of non-violent resistance to conscription; and the second-hand clothes dealer framed by police spies for the attempted murder of Lloyd George.

The exhibition will be open 11am – 5pm, Tues – Sun. The Arts Forum is closed on Mondays and will also be closed on Sat 10 Nov.

A second exhibition (Protest & Thrive, inspired by the graphic art of American artist Sister Corita Kent and the protest placards of British peace activist Richard Crump, is running concurrently in the Arts Forum’s other gallery.

Gabriel Carlyle, who will be talking alongside Emily Johns on 9 November, said: “The German revolution of 1918 – 1919 overthrew the centuries-old Hohenzollern dynasty that was ruling Germany at the time of the First World War and saw radical attempts to replace Germany’s economic system by one run democratically by German workers, rather than by capitalists or by the state. The British response to the revolution led to perhaps a quarter of a million civilian deaths and played a critical role in the destablisation of post-war German society, enabling the rise of the Nazis and the Second World War. Yet this history – like the history of resistance to the First World War inside Germany – is today largely unknown. We invite everyone to come and explore these momentous events with us on Friday 9 November.”

HOT article about Protest and Thrive and local artist and activist, Erica Smith: Erica Smith says: Do Something!

More info:

Emily Johns

The World Is My Country

Protest and Thrive

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