Tags

Anti-Nuclear Movement

Anti-Psychiatry

Anti/Alter-Globalisation

Black Liberation Movement

Civil Liberties

Claimants Union

Class uprisings

Community Campaigns

Cooperative Movement

Countering Education

Environmentalism

Experimental Culture

Free Party Movement

Health Care Stuggles

History from Below

Housing Struggles

Irish Struggles

Italian Language

Libertarian Communist

Marxist-Feminism

Migrant Organising

National Liberation Stuggles

Police Monitoring

Political Education

Prison Resistance

Psychogeography

Queer Movements

Radical Architecture

Radical ecology

Reparations campaigns

Spanish Language

State Monitoring

Student Movements

Underground Music

Underground Press

Women’s Liberation Movement

Workers' Movement

Programme

We run a public programme including archival projects, publications, film screenings, “scan-a-thons” for digitising archival material, workshops, talks and discussion, reading groups, and social nights, all of which encourage active and collective engagement with history of social movements.

Publications

For Peace!

UNCHARTED: Histories of Migrant Health and (In) Access in the 1970s

AGITPROP NOTES

Camera Forward!

The Antihistory Tabloid

Squatting Is Part of The Housing Movement

Pandemic Notes Workbook

Little Red Blue Book

Upcoming & Recent Events

More

December 20

MDR WINTER CLOSURE

May Day Rooms will be closing for our winter break between 20th December and 7th January. During this time we will not be taking any archive or room bookings. Wishing […]

December 6 @ 12:00 pm

MDR SATURDAY ARCHIVE OPEN DAY!

We know that for some of you, it is not always possible to visit our archive during the regular working week, so we are opening our doors to the public […]

December 4 @ 7:00 pm

Reflections on Critical Mass London’s History: A Fireside Chat with Des Kay

Please join us for a warming winter welcome to Des Kay to reflect on Critical Mass London’s history. It is the 20th anniversary of when the London Metropolitan Police tried […]

November 26 @ 6:30 pm

Archiving From Below: Collect, Preserve, Share, Organise with London Community Video Archive (LCVA)

Wednesday 26th November, 6.30-9.30pm at Pelican House For this edition of Archiving From Below, Mayday Rooms are hosting the London Community Video Archive (LCVA) for a special screening event at […]

November 20 @ 4:00 pm

Relaunching the LSE Agitator! with LSE SU Students for Justice in Palestine

The LSE SU Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) have resurrected the revolutionary pamphlet created by the LSE Socialist Society in the 1960s, ‘The Agitator’! The pamphlet served to bring […]

MayDay Rooms Projects

All Projects

Archiving from Below

Since its inception, MayDay Rooms has been built on the principle of archiving from below, challenging the conventional institutional methods of gathering, shaping, and disseminating the history of struggles.

After over a decade of archiving, we are launching a reading and discussion group to address the practices of archiving from below and strategies of activating the histories of resistance.

The group is open to archivists, researchers, historians involved in both past and present organising, and anyone interested in radical archives. Our aim is to share our own approach, learn from each other, and collaboratively develop counter-archival practices that extend beyond mere critique.

For Peace!

Britain is currently entering a new cycle of rearmament, expanding the reach of its nuclear capability, increasing military spending for NATO, and continuing to support Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Those opposing this escalation have been met with increasing repression, through the use of counter-terror legislation, draconian sentencing of protesters and the proscription of groups engaged in direct action.

In this context, this project revisit the peace movement’s material history, trying to better understand the diversity of tactics and intersecting movements which have shaped it. We hope that this projects acts as a resource and inspiration for those struggling for a demilitarised world today. For Peace! interweaves historical strands from the workers’ movement, Women’s Liberation, anti-colonial, socialist, and anarchist movements to address questions of non-violence, class, international solidarity, and the role of liberation struggles. There were four different component parts: a digital multimedia collection which is part of the Activist Media Project, two exhibitions at Glasgow Women’s Library and Four Corners Gallery, an online version of the exhibition and a publication.

Uncovering the Archive

The programme offers a free series of workshops & screenings with an aim to engage young people (18-25) from marginalised backgrounds and/or those who have not engaged with archives before or are not currently in higher education. The intention is to introduce the archive as a resource and archiving as a mode of storytelling available to, and representative of, those who are normally excluded from history- making practices.

The programme offers a free series of workshops & screenings with an aim to engage young people (18-25) from marginalised backgrounds and/or those who have not engaged with archives before or are not currently in higher education. The intention is to introduce the archive as a resource and archiving as a mode of storytelling available to, and representative of, those who are normally excluded from history- making practices.

The Cost-of-Living Crisis and Histories of Direct Action

The current cost-of-living crisis has incentivised a number of strikes in workplaces and sectors all across the country. However, the sphere of production isn’t the only place where a revitalisation of struggle is emerging. Struggles in the sphere of circulation, from energy bill refusal to mass shoplifting, have re-emerged as proletarian responses to our ongoing crises. From Marius Jacob’s ‘night workers’ to the ‘proletarian shopping’ of 1970s Italy, from the Poll Tax federations to student rent strikes, there is a historical precedent for this activity that must be explored and analysed if we wish to push these contemporary struggles further.

Seize the Media

Indymedia was a global network of Independent Media Centres (IMC) which saw its heyday in the first two decades of the 21st Century. Self-organised networks of local activists covered international resistance to capitalism, ecocide, neocolonialism and many other local and international struggles. Indymedia became synonymous with the issues taken up by the Global Justice Movement. Powered by the internet and built on IMC servers, Indymedia embodied the ethos of DIY journalism and autonomous media. It is a vital part of the pre-history of social media and digitally-enabled activism.

New Architectural Movement Digital Archive

A unique collection of documents from a significant activist movement that challenged the established order of architectural practice both in the private and public sectors goes online in November. In the mid-1970s the New Architecture Movement (NAM) gave a voice to progressive and inclusive initiatives that encouraged people to promote social change and greater equality through their work in the built environment.

The launch of NAM’s archive provides both a new resource for historical research and also a challenge to present and future generations in the field to reinterpret and apply NAM’s radical ideas to current issues. NAM brought together young idealistic architects, engineers and planners from across the UK seeking ways to reform working practices and the planning and development process. In an intensely productive period from 1975-80 the movement ran workshops, campaigns and seminars on a range of issues – professional education and governance, workplace structures, feminism, public sector design, worker unionisation – to create an alternative vision that put the priorities of people and communities ahead of developers,corporations and officials.