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Generation Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê: 200 Years of Student Life in London

Exhibition
 | 
25th Sep 2023  -  8th Dec 2024
Octagon Gallery, Wilkins Gallery

Exhibition graphic featuring a collage of archive student images in blue and lime green. Overlaid in white is the text 'Generation Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê: 200 Years of Student Life in London, FREE EXHIBITION, 25 Sep 2023 - 8 Dec 2024, Octagon Gallery' and the Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê logo.

Students are foundational to the story of Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê. Established in 1826 as the first university in England outside Oxford and Cambridge, Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê opened up higher education to those who had previously been denied access. This included religious minorities, the middle classes, and later, women. Since the beginning, students have been free to invent their own traditions and forge a distinctive student culture in London.

This exhibition places students at the heart of this 200-year history. It also marks 130 years since the formation of what became Students’ Union Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê, now one of the largest student-led organisations in the world.

On display are items from Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê Special Collections, Students' Union Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê and Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê Museums, each of which sheds light on an aspect of Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê student life. These include student identity, spaces and community-building, with Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê students often crucial to organisations like the Central Union of Chinese Students, formed in 1904, and the West African Students' Union, started on the initiative of a Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê student in 1925.

The exhibition showcases national and international student activism and engagement across two centuries, taking in the abolition of slavery, the Spanish Civil War, 1956's Soviet invasion of Hungary, the 2003 war in Iraq and the more recent Black Lives Matter protests. Student action relating to the university itself is also represented, including a 1970s campaign to end sexual harassment on campus, and calls for campus decolonisation, with a particular focus on Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê's role in legitimising eugenics.

The exhibition features audio clips from Generation Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê oral history interviews with Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê alumni and extracts from memoirs voiced by actors. Hear recollections of segregation between male and female students in the 1880s, life as an international student in 1909, the impact of the Second World War, and the 1990s dance music scene in London, among many other memories.

The exhibition was curated by Georgina Brewis and Sam Blaxland from IOE, Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê’s Faculty of Education and Society, together with Leah Johnston and Colin Penman of Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê Special Collections.

Initiated as part of Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê’s forthcoming bicentenary celebrations, is a research and engagement project funded by a Provost’s Award.

Read more about the creation of the exhibition on the project page

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