The Chartists in Newport
We spent lockdown in Newport, South Wales, and one of my projects during that time was to revisit photographs I have taken there over the last four decades, and to add more to the collection. So this is a local project, but with larger implications.
The Chartist Rising of 1839 is perhaps the most important thing that ever happened in Newport, and it has been marked by memorials both permanent and ephemeral. (For outsiders who don’t know about the Rising, see the Notes below.)
‘Newport Rising’ is an organisation which aims to promote interest in the Rising alongside a range of other allied activities. I approached them in 2021 with the slideshow I had put together and it was shown during the open day at the Westgate Hotel on November 4.
It was then augmented for the ‘Newport Rising’ website, where it can found at newportrising.co.uk/ianwalker. My great thanks to David Daniel for his work on this.
The final manifestation of the project was at the end of 2023, when the slideshow was installed in its own viewing space next to the exhibition ‘Representing the Rising: Chartism and Art in Newport’ , shown in the main space of Newport Museum and Art Gallery.
