As our exhibition preparations were sadly halted by the lockdown in March, we are delighted to share People Meeting in a Room – a film that has been in development with Adam Lewis Jacob since 2018 –  as part of the online launch of artist film project WORK. Co-commissioned by Vivid Projects & Animate Projects, People Meeting In A Room is a richly layered work reflecting on collective film making and workers’ activism. Developed over a year, it connects the histories of activists and film makers associated with the Birmingham Trade Union Resource Centre in the 1980s with a group of contemporary collaborators. Importantly, the film considers political and personal bias, personal agency and the transformative power of the collective act.

Collaborators and contributors to the film include: Ranbir Bains, Marian Hall, Muhammad Idrish, Ian Sergeant, Cathy Wade, Barry Burns, Christian Noelle Charles, Alicia Matthews, Tony Morris, Laurie Pitt and Jason Kerley.

Animated characters by kind permission of Steve Bell.

Archive footage by kind permission of TURC Video and VIVID archive courtesy of Vivid Projects, Yasmeen Baig-Clifford and Marian Hall.

You can watch Adam’s film, read some of the transcripts and find out more here. Further activities on the work of activist Muhammad Idrish and anti-deportation campaigns can be found here and here. Contact us for more information.

‘It’s perhaps a film that almost embodies, rather than represents, TURC or its politics’.

Adam Lewis Jacob

Background

Produced over two years, WORK  is a collaboration between Animate Projects, Vivid Projects, Fermynwoods, QUAD and Junction Arts with artists Adam Lewis Jacob, Dryden Goodwin, Esther Johnson and Jenny Holt. Made in Derby, Thrapston, Birmingham and Bolsover, the WORK films explore: the rhythms of a care worker’s day; rural working lives and the intrusion of distribution hubs; the Trade Union Resource Centre archive and collective activism; stories of the impact on individual lives of post-industrial economic change. Supported by Jerwood Arts and using public funding by Arts Council England.