'Art for the People' - Dr Emma West at the BMI

Monday Lecture at the Birmingham and Midland Institute 

Dr Emma West has been invited to give one of the prestigious Monday lectures at the Birmingham and Midland Institute. Her talk, ‘Art for the People’, will provide a lively illustrated introduction to her postdoctoral research. 

In the first half of the twentieth century, a pioneering band of administrators and civil servants organised a series of schemes to extend public access to the arts. In village halls, restaurants, factories, high streets, railway stations and even a car showroom, they staged exhibitions and performances designed to ‘bring the arts into everyday life’. In this lecture, Dr Emma West uncovers some of these forgotten schemes, focusing on the Arts League of Service, whose travelling theatre bought experimental art, theatre and ballet to rural audiences from Essex to Arran.