Screen Printing and Revolution
In 1960’s London, screen printing became something of a necessity, a quick and cheap way of recreating imagery en masse for the subsequent anti Vietnam War protests which culminated in a gathering of over ten thousand people outside the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square.
During this turbulent time, people were protesting for a number of causes: War, Civil Rights, freedom, Apartheid, and better work conditions, people in London needed a way to demonstrate their cause and at the heart of it all was a printmaking collective in Camden called The Poster Workshop.
The Poster Workshop was community driven and worked to print imagery for anybody with a worthy cause. Over its three years of existence operating out of a basement, it printed hundreds of political posters.
The workshop was inspired by Atelier Populaire, an anonymous group of artists utilising silk screens to show solidarity with striking workers in 1968 France, and I suppose there’s a strange juxtaposition then in the mass production of art pieces created to condemn the machine of capitalism.
Art can be utilised as a tool for change, something which can incite real world differences through publicising important discussions, through creativity we can transcribe literature into something experiential in order to appeal to a wider audience, and the convenience of screen printing allows us to use visual language and repeat imagery in order to get our point across.
The Arts have always been deeply interconnected to protest and politics, though recently have become a target by Just Stop Oil protestors in order to garner publicity for their cause - I was hurt at first, to see art and climate action portrayed as two conflicting entities rather than something symbiotic, but could this just be a contemporary, performative extension of the arts, utilised in a way which reflects our current times?
