From the magazine

If ‘wokeness’ is over, can someone tell the Fitzwilliam Museum?

Its new exhibition Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition is activist agit-prop – which is a pity because there are many interesting things in it

Robert Tombs Robert Tombs
‘Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray at Kenwood House’, c.1776, by David Martin EARL OF MANSFIELD, SCONE PALACE, PERTH
EXPLORE THE ISSUE 22 March 2025
issue 22 March 2025

Optimists believe that the tide of ‘wokeness’ is now ebbing. If so, the message has not yet reached Cambridge, whose wonderful university museum has its classical façade covered in sententious phrases in neon, and which has recently opened a new exhibition in agit-prop style: Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition. Such activism is fully in step with the Museums Association, the curators’ club that instructs its members to turn their institutions into activist cells.

GIF Image

Disagree with half of it, enjoy reading all of it

TRY A MONTH FREE
Our magazine articles are for subscribers only. Try a month of Britain’s best writing, absolutely free.

Comments

Join the debate, free for a month

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first month free.

Already a subscriber? Log in