The Centre for Film and Ethics was delighted to host a screening of Art on the Streets, a new Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded documentary created by design historian Harriet Atkinson and filmmaker Jane Dibblin, narrated by Michael Rosen.
Art on the Streets explores art’s role in providing a voice, a platform and a meeting point in the midst of conflict, issues that have particular resonance in today’s world. The film focuses on For Liberty, an exhibition mounted in 1943 in the bombed-out John Lewis department store on London’s Oxford Street. Created by the anti-fascist artists’ collective, Artists International Association, this audacious show aimed to demonstrate the values people were fighting for. Central to the exhibition were many artists who had recently arrived in Britain having fled the Nazi threat. The film follows some of the artists who took part, including Oskar Kokoschka, Peter Laszlo Peri, Betty Rea and designer F. H. K. Henrion.
The screening was followed by an in conversation with the filmmakers and the Centre for Film and Ethics’ Dr Grazia Ingravalle and Dr Guy Westwell.
More info about the film here: https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/materialisationofpersuasion/2023/06/08/art-on-the-streets-trailer/