The Whitworth and Manchester Art Galleries: Alistair Hudson on Social Justice, Economics and the Role of Museums

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Please visit the websites for Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery, Decentralizing Political Economies, and Arte Útil to learn more.

2:00 Evolution Whitworth and Manchester Galleries’ mission

4:30 Use of art as a process for social change

5:00 Manchester Art Gallery

5:45 Whitworth Gallery

6:50 Healthy mind, body and spirit agenda

7:50 Platt Hall redevelopment

12:00 Pub as art center in Cumbria

14:00 Museum 3.0

16:30 Arte Útil and Cuban Artist Tania Bruguera 

18:10 Whitworth’s Office of Arte Útil

20:00 Aplicación Legal’s use of legal loopholes

20:58 Núria Güell’s Degenerate Art Protocol

22:00 Núria Güell’s project involving loophole that allowed occupation of Tower block in Spain after removing doors

23:30 Decentralizing Political Economies research platform

23:50 Joy Forever exhibition – based on Social Reformer John Ruskin’s 1857 two-day lecture on economy as making the right conditions for living 

24:55 Interplay between art and economy is fundamental to the way we develop society - how to see the world truthfully and then act ethically 

25:25 Art defined as what’s done with care and consideration 

26:05 Economics the Blockbuster exhibition

26:35 Reclaiming art as the operating system for our living conditions, as good housekeeping

27:50 Decentralizing Political Economies platform

28:30 NFT of William Blake’s The Ancient of Days

30:40 Proceeds of Blake NFT to be used for social programmes

31:41 Story of NFT to be used in exhibition 

33:15 U.S. Artist Suzanne Lacy’s current show at The Whitworth

34:05 SF MoMA’s version of a Suzanne Lacy retrospective

34:35 Lacy’s What Kind of City? A Manual for Social Change

36:10 Lacy’s Oakland Projects to be used for a new project in Manchester to give youths agency

37:55 Lacy’s Uncertain Futures project to be used for better working rights for women over 50 years old 

39:10 Capacity for change with individuals involved in and benefiting from these projects 

42:30 These projects are elegant demonstrations of why art matters

42:50 Art world individuals who have a vested interest in the status quo are sometimes the ones who criticize these types of projects

43:20 Social justice at the center of these projects 

43:50 The Whitworth and Manchester Galleries’ design as social instruments 

44:10 The beauty of ethics and equitable relationships 

45:00 Use of museums’ cultural power

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Music by Toulme.

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© Stephanie Drawdy [2026]