The People’s Archive

The People’s Archive was made for the reopening of King George’s Hall in Blackburn, a Grade II listed venue returned to use in October 2026 after a £13.5 million restoration. One hundred and one prints are installed through the building, alongside two large-scale lightboxes — a deliberate nod to the stage lights that illuminate performers and audiences alike.

Holman worked with the researcher Bruce Wilkinson, going through newspaper archives, books and historical accounts to recover stories that had slipped out of the record. The hall was built on Blakey Moor, ground that had held a cattle market, poets and artists, and the building was in part an attempt to impose civic order on the older, more chaotic Blackburn around it. A hundred and five years of programming suggests the attempt only partly succeeded.

The archive sets the famous names against the stranger moments: Queen playing as a support act, Blondie refusing to go on because of the spitting from the audience, Chuck Berry demanding payment in cash and then encouraging a stage invasion, and the council banning further David Bowie gigs after a Ziggy Stardust appearance. Alongside them sit bhangra nights, the rise of acid house in Blackburn, comedians’ first breaks, boxing and wrestling, and a crowd gathered in 1931 to hear a live radio broadcast of Blackburn Rovers at Stamford Bridge. Political meetings are included too — Enoch Powell’s visits, and the opposition that met them, under the headline ‘Blackburn is Anti-Fascist!’

The lightboxes were made from images by Derren Poole and produced by Parkinsons Signs in Blackburn. Around twenty people contributed to the installation, supported by the Creative Alliance and Blackburn with Darwen Council, which funds paid internships for young people working in the borough’s cultural sector.