A new exhibition wants to reclaim graphic design as a \u201ccall to arms\u201d to make the world better.<\/p>\n
The Right to Protest<\/em><\/a>, which opens in London tomorrow, features 200 posters, with designs from some of the largest private collections in the UK, alongside new work from creatives like Anthony Burrill and Mr Bingo.<\/p>\n \u201cThe exhibition is a reengagement with design\u2019s radical past, and a call to arms in a world where our right to protest is under threat,\u201d says John Phillips, founder of the Museum of UnRest, which is curating the show with the Pro Radix group.<\/p>\n The organisers want to highlight the work of activist design groups that they think should be better known, like the See Red Women\u2019s Workshop, the Paddington Printshop and the Red Dragon Print Collective.<\/p>\n Some of the posters in the Right to Protest show<\/p>\n But they want to go beyond nostalgia and look to the future too, so there will be workshops, talks, and what they call \u201cparticipatory radical acts.\u201d<\/p>\n It takes place during the London Design Festival (LDF), but organisers want their show to be a counterpoint to LDF\u2019s more conservative and commercial offerings.<\/p>\n We spoke with organiser Clive Russell to find out more about the project, and the power of design to engage with society\u2019s most critical questions.<\/p>\n The Right to Protest is an exhibition many decades in the making.<\/p>\n When the Museum of UnRest and Pro Radix started working together, we looked at the many ways art and design is failing to deal with the intersecting shitshow of modern crises \u2013 the climate crisis, the cost of living, lack of housing, access to education, inequality, the list goes on and on.<\/p>\n Historically, social crises reach the mainstream via protest \u2013 which can take many forms. This helps a society re-evaluate and evolve, making it more understanding and tolerant. More caring.<\/p>\n We should remember without protest we would not have a Welfare State, nor an NHS. This happened because of protests like the hunger marches, with marchers making banners and posters to express their ideas.<\/p>\n Recently we have seen many \u201cdemocracies\u201d openly suppressing protest \u2013 in the UK this is evident in recent protest laws passed by the previous government, but also used by the present.<\/p>\n The Right to Protest exhibition uses our recent past, from the 1960s to the present day, to remind the art and design community of its active role in protest. How it has given a voice to voiceless communities, helped explain complex issues and gone beyond commercial gain.<\/p>\n With governments and corporations actively silencing voices they disagree with, the need for artists and designers to be involved in protest is crucial.<\/p>\n The London Design Festival celebrates the commercial world of design. Which is fine, everyone needs to make some money right?<\/p>\n But if this commercialism is responsible for fuelling many of our modern dilemmas and crises, what does this say about the design world and about LDF?<\/p>\n If design is the conscious process of shaping and making our world, then the design community must address and help to solve the most profound problems which we, and the planet, face.<\/p>\n Yet much of the design world remains mesmerised by the glamour and glitter of consumerism, that is itself fuelling a crisis. The more we consume, the more we produce, the more we produce, the less there is for future and present generations.<\/p>\n It is therefore imperative to draw attention to the history and contemporary contributions of design within debates about how issues might be addressed through both protest and imaginative design.<\/p>\n Mr Bingo\u2019s posters for The Right to Protest show<\/p>\n LDF does not recognise this aspect of design at all.<\/p>\n In only celebrating design\u2019s ability to create and sell products, LDF misses design\u2019s crucial role in shaping society. After all, a choice between different brands is just a choice of different things to buy \u2013 which might even be made in the same factory using the same materials.<\/p>\n Do we really need that? Designers can imagine better.<\/p>\n The evolution of graphic design, from its craft-based past into branding manuals, and onto its data-driven present, has left many designers feeling like a cog in a machine.<\/p>\n A desire for predictable results has created a ubiquitous visual space driven by visual blanding \u2013 everyone is racing into the same middle ground. Everywhere is starting to look and feel the same.<\/p>\n This branding of culture promotes a singular view of what is right and what is good, what is good. This has been caffeinated by digital culture.<\/p>\n Predictability of output has never been easier to control but where does that leave creativity and the joy of the uncertain, the truly new?<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not just about graphic design, the questions are wider and applicable to all aspects of design practice and production. Where is the design field\u2019s moral and ethical compass?<\/p>\n Can there be such a thing as \u201cgood design\u201d with negative environmental and social consequences?<\/p>\n Maybe design needs a new brief \u2013 one that isn\u2019t about production and consumption and predictability. After all branding is something you do to someone, not with someone. These are the conversations the exhibition wants to fuel.<\/p>\n Kristian Buus\u2019 poster in the Right to Protest showWhere did the idea for this show come from? Why does it feel urgent?<\/h5>\n
You say it\u2019s \u201can antidote to the branded, more polished and boring world of the London Design Festival.\u201d Why is that needed?<\/h5>\n
Is there also a sense that graphic art has become less stringent in recent years? What role could\/should design be playing, that maybe it\u2019s not playing now?<\/h5>\n
\nOne of the posters in the Right to Protest show
\nClive Russell\u2019s poster for The Right to Protest show<\/p>\n