First of its kind feminist exhibition at The Whitworth

Following its success at Tate Britain last year, Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990, opens at Manchester’s Whitworth Art Gallery.

The wide-ranging exhibition of feminist art showcases work from more than 90 women artists across two decades of art and activism, including radical artwork which in its time was considered so obscene police raided the exhibition where it was on display and shut it down.

The Manchester exhibition is organised by Tate Britain in collaboration with the Whitworth, The University of Manchester and National Galleries of Scotland. It runs across 6 rooms exploring key themes of maternal and domestic experiences, anti-racist and LGBTQ+ activism, Greenham Common and the peace movement, and punk and independent music.

The rooms are organised chronologically from 1970 to 1990, a decision it took curator Lindsey Young two years to settle on. “It’s uncomfortable, because there isn’t feminist work by artists of colour visible until the late 70s,” she explains.

Lindsey spent five years working on Women in Revolt! before it was initially displayed in Tate Britain in 2023. She cites three strong reasons behind her inspiration.

“The first is, I wanted to make a present for my mum,” she says. “She was a single mum, she was a nurse, she was funny, she was brilliant, and the world really kind of f*****d her over. It’s those injustices, small and large, that just infiltrate women’s everyday lives.”

The second reason comes from Lindsey’s time working at the Tate. “I was asked early on to make this display about the 1980s. And I ended up going for all the queer work, and all the work from people of colour. And I remember them saying ‘Oh this is so unusual’, and to me, I’d just told the most obvious story of the 80s. That got me thinking, what can you do in an institution like this?

“The third reason is because I was called curator of contemporary art, British art, but I realised I didn’t know about British art. I knew about a white, male British art, because that’s what I’d been taught.”

Despite long careers, many of the artists featured have been excluded until now in artistic narratives of the time. And this is the first time many of the works featured have been displayed since the 1970s.

Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990’ is open from 7 March to 1 June 2025 with the same opening hours as Whitworth Art Gallery.

The exhibition includes Bobby Bakers ‘An Edible Family in a Mobile Home’, a sculptural installation of edible, life-sized family members made from cakes, meringues and biscuits, served to visitors with a cup of tea.

An Edible Family in a Mobile Home is also free to enter and is open until 20 April 2025 during the following special opening hours: Wednesday: 10.30am–4pm; Thursday: 2pm–8pm; Friday: 10.30am–4pm; Saturday: 10.30am–4pm and Sunday: 10.30am–4pm.

Alongside the exhibition, the Whitworth is running a programme of free events.

Content warning: Women in Revolt! addresses a range of social issues that could be distressing. Gina Birch – Three Minute Scream (1979) plays on a continuous loop with other audio installations, earplugs will be available from the Visitor Team.