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‘Don’t Believe the Papers’  Mireille Fauchon’s work inspired by a Croydon suffragette, Katie Gliddon. Thought-provoking and creative exhibition on women’s suffrage.

Katie was sentenced to two months in Holloway Prison in 1912, for smashing a post office window during the mass glass smashing campaign: she kept a secret diary, including her thoughts and drawings in the margins of a poetry anthology of Shelley.

Mireille is particularly interested in how illustration, specially practice as a visual storyteller, can be applied as a social research tool.

Markmaking as an imaginative illustrative tool. Absorbs descriptive elements into more abstract narrative. Texture - collage - photograps - silhouettes - text

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Mothers, missiles and the American President 3/3 - EMBRACE THE BASE, THE ARRIVAL OF THE MISSILES

12th December 1983 - 30000 women mass protest, human chain around the base. With the missiles arrival closer, violence escalates, evictions every day “We were sfraid they could shoot us” Numbers swell at the weekends, trying to get arrested in mass. The sisters go to new york, went to court, allocated conservative judge. Ruling: court did not have jurisdiction to act upon USA government.

Missiles arrived at the base “We came back feeling defeated” “Greenham changed my whole perspective and there was no going back”

1989 - missiles are going back to USA Government denies influence of the protester, the women did not get credit for the pressure they arose around the issue.

Only one gate left standing, in memoriam. “You can change things, small and big” “I had as much right as anyone else to have an opinion and fight” “It was scary, difficult, crazy, but it was the right thing to  do and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world”

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Mothers, missiles and the American President 2/3 - INVADING THE BASE

No real interest from media, so they decide to raise the bar, invading from the main gate. Criminal offense, in order to bring the argument to discuss in court.

One of them was pregnant, given a sign which said “pregnant, handle with care”

It was scary, anxiety, illegal, could be incarcerated for up to 10 years. “Inside the cubicle, we all started to sing, if in doubt sing”

Brought to court, frightened for their family. Refused bend-over agreement, to keep the peace for an amount of time. Sentenced to14 days of jail. At home, the husbands acted cooperatively to help with kids.  Upsetting influence on other prisoners, considered disruptive and separated in different prisons.

The action galvanized the name of greenham, it put greenham on the map.

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Mothers, missiles and the American President 1/3 - ARRIVE AT THE CAMP

It was like being dropped in another world: buddhist monks, witches, lesbians, middle class women, very well spoken, they all sounded posh to us. Some of them sleeping in cars, tents 

“You are not just a housewife, you’re a lifegiver, you’re a mother, you’re a carer” “At greenham I was free, I was present”

They were blamed for everything, we joked about them, farmers would drive by and spray them, media was more interested in the spectacle than the cause, no one wanted to hear what they actually wanted to say.

“Jargon-shouting, escaping from male company” “Stinky lesbians” People would come and look, like at the zoo.

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TIME FOR BED, FRED! Yasmeen Ismail

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ME AND MY FEAR Francesca Sanna

lovely bright palette of teal-y blues and orangey reds smart use of white negative spaces in compositions and character: where fear interconnects and “eats up” with the white empty space of the page, creating visual pauses in the spreads, occupying space, visually and physically cutting character out  play in size and composition in the exchanges between the characters diverse and rich representation of children fun, whimsical, colorful vibe, approachable and relatable the ending feels a bit rushed and mono-paced

my favorite spread: the bed spread, fun, appealing, whimsical, storytelling the succession of two mirroring spreads, parallel effects of fear, change of expression in fear, isolation and defensiveness

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Sam & Dave Dig A Hole Jon Klassen

tension humor, element of surprise in every page-turn  the setting is always kept in the same frame/dimension: the camera moves around without ever zooming in the pace is constant, almost like screenshots made at regular intervals, this emphasizes the attention on the bizarre hidden elements that brake the composition (giant diamonds, dog, bone) and the change in mood (darker toward the end) the dog is the only element staring at the audience the technique is dirty, gritty, textured, conveys dirtiness and escalating darkness of the quest open-ended conclusions, mystery, unsolved ending although simple, the narrative goes through very different waves of tension the text willingly lacks of the 

my favorite spreads: the giant diamond, first tension climax falling asleep, darkening of mood climax the dog head pops up, rupture of tension, reveal

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WHAT CAN CATS DO? Abner Graboff

- swashy swishy black and gray ink // flat overlaid teal (digital?) - contrast between analogue, “messy” brushstrokes and juxtaposed, flat colors  - full use of the minimal three colors palette - the brushstrokes give whimsy personality to the characters and the book as a whole, preserved energy from the sketches underneath - mischievous and carefree energy, mistakes are kept as indispensable part of the final work

my favourite double spreads are the ones that most play with composition and scale: in how many ways can I put a cat across a double spread?

? the narrative doesn’t really have a resolutive moment

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Sylvia Rivera - 1973 iconic speech  "Y'all Better Quiet Down"

animation by Brogan Bertie  - observational sketches - quick, energetic visualization of the speach - crowd reaction, gritty, blurred, movements, slobbered - accentuated facial movements, fluid energy

what was the effect of 1968 on the Stonewall Riots? grass root figures like Sylvia and Marsha, anti-assimilation queer movement aftermaths were not kind to the least palatable rioters black, brown, trans*, gender non-conforming, queer figures were thrown out the stage in favor of palatable assimilationists and white middle class gay people.

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Gran Fury the "propaganda" arm of ACT-UP

initially distributed flyers for the cost of offset printing and wheat paste realized their "propaganda" had a role in the group identity their imagery became part of a vocabulary ---> Guerilla Girls, Barbara Kruger, and others

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PS PROCESS: Digitally aging a photograph

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NON UNA DI MENO - italian intersectional transfeminist protest movement

coherent protest visual language:  constant palette, recognizable and reproducible font, easily reproducible graphic elements, stenciled-vibe graphic identity, anonymity and strength in numbers

successful and skilled comunicators

use of coherent physical elements, bandanas, balaclavas, pink paint huge diffusion online and successful social campaign use of protest slogans of pas feminist influence but recontextualised and recoded under coherent graphic identity

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Celebration of protest

Paul Peter Piech, 100 posters to commemorate the assassination of Martin Luther King 1968, 1978. Linocut. USA.

bichrome, black and white linocut, graphic and simplified geometric illustration

celebrative and uplifting

to celebrate the martyres of protest movements is to celebrate visual legacy of the protest itself

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PROTEST ART - the beginning

1920s Dadaism, collage as an affordable medium in reaction towards WWI, absurdity of war-torn humanity, unapologetic reactionary art

Hannah Hoch, Untitled, 1930, Photomontage

Hannah Höch, Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany, 1919

everyday life wrought with anxiety and a sense of wounded loss

collage and recontextualization go on to become mass medium of protest, cheap, affordable, easily accessible and distributed 

1920s Mexican Muralists

revolution against tyrannical industrialization, strife of the proletariat, large scale frescoes, didactic and powerful scenes, confrontational, exposing

Diego Rivera, 1931, Detail of “The Uprising”

poses, images, human representation of protest, go on to become symbolic leitmotifs of protest

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Guerilla Girls - 1985 to now

anonymous feminist group of female artists devoted to fighting sexism and racism within the art world

protest posters, bold, confrontational, highly contrasted , easily constructed collage effect, message over aesthetics

recognizable visual language, color palette, collage of photographic elements

easily printable and translatable messages

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Masuteru Aoba protest poster art - 1970s and ’80s

series of protest posters focusing on nonviolence and environmentalism, with the goal to create a more empathetic society

bold black + color contrast

highly contrasted photographic silhouettes

bold, incisive type

urgent, graphic, attention grabber, metaphorical