New exhibition highlights British radical living over 200 years
- Text by Isaac Muk
- Photography by William Morris Gallery (courtesy of)
Earthly Paradise — Taking place at the William Morris Gallery, it explores the homes and lives of artists, writers, musicians and more, as well as the conditions that allowed them to thrive.
A new exhibition coming to London will explore the radical people and places that have shaped contemporary Britain.
On view at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow between October 3, 2026 and March 28, 2027, Earthly Paradise: Radical Living in the UK, dives into the communities and conditions that have allowed art and activism to thrive over the past 200 years.
It focuses on the living spaces and homes that people living outside of mainstream society have occupied, including squats, communes and anti-racist housing movements that encourage alternative ways of thinking and existing.
The exhibition will feature photographs, objects, paintings, drawings and sound archives, featuring ephemera and work from the likes of Oscar Wilde, Lee Miller, Sunil Gupta and Martin Parr.
Through its themes and the works on show, the exhibition will raise questions about money and class within capitalism, and who has access to create and rebel. Photography from the 1990s onwards explores how rising rents and house prices, in the wake of the 1980 Right to Buy scheme introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government, has changed our relationship with homes and the ability to create and think differently.
Earthly Paradise: Radical Living in the UK is part of Art Fund’s ‘Going Places’ touring exhibitions programme, which sees museums across the UK collaborate in sharing their collections with different local communities. It has been developed with Tŷ Pawb in Wrexham, Blackwell – The Arts & Crafts House in Bowness-on-Windermere and Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh.
Hadrian Garrard, Director, William Morris Gallery, said: “William Morris was in an open marriage and wanted to completely blur the lines between domestic life and making and experiencing art.
“He was friends with gay men and women, anarchists and revolutionaries – and he lived radically in the ways that we see many other artists live through history,” he continued. “This show looks at how the home has acted as a site for challenging societal norms – what that has meant through history and what the possibilities are for this in today’s world.”
Earthly Paradise: Radical Living in the UK is on view at William Morris Gallery between October 3, 2026 and March 28, 2027.
Isaac Muk is Huck’s digital editor. Follow him on Bluesky.
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