James Fox

Rights, Riots and Routes

The tension between the industrialisation of cotton manufacturing and traditional cottage industry was the starting point for James Fox’s work that explored the history of protest and punishment via the Lancashire loombreaker riots of 1826.

The installation at Helmshore Mill included James’ trademark hard-hitting embroideries and prints plus a new film collaboration with Maxine Peake presenting the tragic continuum of women’s experience of the criminal justice system over two centuries.

Co-commission with Mid Pennine Arts as part of their Pendle Radicals programme.