Axel Void pays tribute to Peterloo

Alejandro Hugo Dorda Mevs, better known as Axel Void, was in Manchester a few weeks ago where he painted this wonderful tribute to the Peterloo Massacre occurred at St Peter’s Field, Manchester, England, on 16 August 1819.

According to the artist, the mural is a tribute to the sacrifices of ordinary people, a tribute to those with nothing who gave their everything, to stand against injustice.
Featuring the image of a mother and her child, the mural is part of Peoples History Museum’s year long programme exploring the past, present and future of protest, marking 200 years since the Peterloo Massacre and stands as a beacon of hope, on its walls. The mother and child, symbolise those who came to St Peter’s Field that day.

‘The first victim of Peterloo was a two-year old child, William Fildes. Thrust from his mother’s arms, as she fled the soldiers, charging on their horses, waving their sabres, he was murdered that day.
Considered less human, those like William and his mother had been vilified, criminalised and demonised. Held in contempt, to silence their voice, the politicians and the powerful mobilised the resources at their disposal.  The press, the law and their military might.

They came wearing their finest, determined to show all those that witnessed, that they were neither the dirt nor demons that the press of the time had portrayed them to be. The women even came dressed in white.

In contingents representing their towns and communities, they came in their thousands. They came with their families, their neighbours, their friends.  They came with their children. They came not to riot or to revolt nor even for revolution.  What they actually came for was to listen to words of hope.

History speaks of the event from the perspective of social change, conflict and war.  My contribution projects the event from the perspective of the people.  I ask, if this happened in our time, who would these people be now?  What would they be fighting for?

This image depicts a Mancunian young woman, Lydia, and her two-year old son, Ezra.  Dressed in her white, Lydia is much more than a symbol of the women who attended that day.  A daughter of a Windrush victim, the injustice experienced by Lydia connects to the injustices of the past.  Her son, her everything, held tenderly in her arms, hers is not a story of fiction, hers is not a tale of yesteryear.  Peterloo is not just a story of the past.  For many, it remains relevant today.

This is our tribute to the people of our city.  Our purpose, not just intended as a reminder of the injustices that ordinary people still face nor how they, even today, remain marginalised and oppressed.  Our purpose is more than this.  This is a tribute in honour of ordinary people.  Of how, resolute and with grace, they still rise in their determination to make the world a better place.  This is a tribute to hope.

Those that gathered that day, those today, that still remain defiant, they are not just another nameless face lost in a crowd.  They are the faces of our neighbours, of our friends and of our kin.  They are the reflections in the mirror.  Theirs, yours, and ours.  They are the faces of our people.  They are the faces of hope.’ – Axel Void

About the artist

Axel Void (Alejandro Hugo Dorda Mevs) was born in Miami in 1986 to a Haitian mother and a Spanish father. He was raised in Spain from the age of three, where he was strongly influenced by classical painting and drawing. Axel Void has been in contact with graffiti writing since 1999. He studied Fine Arts in Cádiz, Granada, and Sevilla, and based himself in Berlin until moving to Miami in 2013, where he currently resides.

More about Axel Void on his website | facebook | instagram

Images and info via People’s History Museum www.phm.org.uk