Whose Power? Participatory Approaches to Energy Pasts, Presents and Futures

Join us for a work in progress seminar, with speaker Abigail Harrison Moore, Professor of Professor of Art History and Museum Studies in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies.

A second edition of Whose Power? Energy Change in the Home, opened at Leeds Discovery Centre in November 2024. This exhibition, first shown at Leeds City Museum, is part of a participatory action research project with the Preservative Party, a diverse group 14-24 year old volunteer curators from the City.

Starting with the questions raised in Abigail Harrison Moore’s co-edited book, In a New Light; Histories of Women and Energy (2021), the project has explored archives and objects that have not previously been used to tell the histories of energy. This has facilitated critical conversations about who had and has the power to influence energy change.

While their lived experience led them to question what Abigail’s research on c19th white, middle-class women meant to them, working together has allowed the group to structure their project around wider definitions of power. Co-production has empowered the group to produce a public conversation on our individual power to make the vital decisions that will produce the post-carbon home.

There is an urgent need to rethink, advocate for and share best practice in the way we work with communities in archives to produce new knowledge and exhibitions, break down barriers and influence institutional and societal change. By co-producing new interdisciplinary interpretations of objects and texts that have not traditionally represented the histories of science and energy, this project aims to develop young people’s cultural and science capital to enable them to take an active role in urgent debates about our individual power to shape environmental futures.

As well as exhibitions, the project has produced, to date, two series of the Whose Power? podcast, a primary school learning resource, a zine, and has led to us being invited to speak about our work nationally and internationally.

In this seminar, Abigail will explore both the background to this work, in her writing on women and energy in the c19th home, and learning from working with the Preservative Party for the last three years.

About the speaker

Professor of Art History and Museum Studies at the University of Leeds, Abigail Harrison Moore’s research focusses on c19th and early c20th art and design history. Her monograph, Fraud, Fakery and False Business (2011) considered the antiques market in 1920’s England.

She currently leads an international project on gender and the histories of energy (In a New Light; Histories of Women and Energy (2021)). 

While Abigail has worked at Leeds for over 30 years, she has also taught in a wide range of educational settings including schools, museums, and prisons. She is a campaigner for access to education in the arts and humanities, helping develop the school curriculum. She leads a range of projects for teachers and pupils, including Art Teachers Connect; the Discover ARTiculation Challenge and Discovery Days, and a national EPQ programme. 

She currently combines these two strands of her research and practice, working with Leeds Museum’s Preservative Party (14-24 year olds) to co-produce histories of women and energy in the home. The project team consider who has been missing from energy history in the past and how a wider diversity of people can be included in domestic energy decisions in the present and future, leading to the Whose Power? podcast series.

Venue

Seminar Room 2.14
Parkinson Building
Woodhouse Lane
University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT

More information

This work in progress seminar is hosted by the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies. It is free to attend and all are welcome.

If you are interested in joining us, we would be grateful if you would register via this sign up form so we can keep track of numbers.

Image

Abigail Harrison Moore working with members of the Preservative Party at the Discovery Centre in Leeds. Photo by Andy Lord. Image © University of Leeds.