Tuesday, 26 May 2015

A World To Win, Posters of Protest and Revolution

Illuminate are busy researching the artwork within the exhibition "A World to Win", Posters of Protest and Revolution, an exhibition from the V &A which Nottingham City Museum and Galleries will be showing this Autumn. This exhibition presents a century of posters agitating for political change.











We've started  researching the Artwork and themes within the exhibition and discussing ideas around protest and revolution. We also plan to try out some creative ways to spread ideas and messages and looking at the way artists engage with social and political ideas (in particular looking at the Poster) and the impact technology has had on the way we empower, communicate and organise.

First up we took a look at some of the posters that will be shown as part of the exhibition. Looking at the images the group were asked to decipher ..

When do you think they were made
What country do you think they came from
Who were they created by? ( a group, a government, an organisation )
What was the aim of the poster?
What tone is used, for example, persuasive, idealistic, angry, moral outrage, a Sense of truth or justice
And lastly how they were made? What media was used? Do they look massed produced or created by an individual?





It was really interesting trying to place the posters, some where relatively easy, whilst others had us lost. It was also a chance for some of the group to show of their historical and political knowledge and for others of us, to purely guess.



We then feed back our ideas and I reveiled the background and aim of the posters based on the interpretation that went with the V&A exhibition.

We then looked at what themes we thought united particular posters, there were some that were obviously from the government, depicting leaders as heroes or advocating a certain way of life, others focused on corporations with immoral or unethical practices whilst others focused on empowering certain groups of people.

We grouped the posters into our own mini exhibition and then looked at the themes that the V&A had used . Most overlapped with our own themes for example "All power to the people" which bought together posters about women's and gay rights.



We left with a really good sense of the exhibitions content and with some thoughts about how posters can be used to spread ideas and convey ideas  Next week we will be putting some of this into practice by creating our own manifesto for an ideal World.






Image credits

Polling Station

Unknown Artist

1909-1913

London

Museum no: E.644-1972

Given by Miss A.E. Norris

©Victoria and Albert Museum, London




Freiheit Friede Arbeit (Freedom Peace Work)

Walenty Zietara, for the German Democratic Party

1919

Munich

Lithograph

Museum no: E.2-2004

Gift of the American Friends of the V&A; Gift to the American Friends by Leslie, Judith and Gabri Schreyer and Alice Schreyer Batko

©Victoria and Albert Museum, London



慶祝中華人民共和國成立 (Celebrating the Establishment of the People’s Republic of China)

Unknown designer

1950

China

Relief-print

Museum no: FE.20-1994

©Victoria and Albert Museum, London



1959 1969 Décimo Aniversario del Triunfo de la Rebelión Cubana (1959 1969 Tenth Anniversary of the Triumph of the Cuban Rebellion)

René Mederos

1969

Cuba

E.169-2014

Screenprint

Gift of Michael Tyler

© Victoria and Albert Museum, London/The Estate of René Mederos




There’s a Credit Crunch, Not a Creative Crunch.

Aida Wild

2011

London

Museum no. E.256-2014

Screenprint

Given by Catherine Flood

© Victoria and Albert Museum, London/Aida Wild