V&A Museum looks at tools of resistance
A London exhibition shows protesters around the world are getting their message across with innovative designs
Every protest movement from the suffragettes to Occupy has created objects that demand attention and disrupt the status quo. "Disobedient Objects", a collection of 99 items at Victoria & Albert Museum in London, is the first exhibition of its kind to bring together examples of art and design created to communicate political messages and to facilitate protests.
The curators have deliberately left space to accommodate one more object, thus highlighting that these protests are ongoing. Perhaps the 100th object will come from the Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong - co-curator Catherine Flood is open to suggestions.
Makeshift gas masks made by anti-government protesters at Taksim Gezi Park in Istanbul, a robot that paints graffiti, and defaced banknotes and coins are among the collection which is on show until February 1, 2015.
Two years ago Flood was beginning work on an exhibition of "Posters of Protest and Revolution" when she was sent to Moscow to help bring down a big V&A exhibition. It was mayhem on the streets of Moscow with people demonstrating against Vladimir Putin standing for re-election. Flood noticed a small design space that had mounted a temporary, one-week exhibition of protest placards and sensed a new project.
It shows that design is not just a commercial process or professional activity, but that ordinary people can take design into their hands and instigate change
"They had recognised a different style of protest in Russia that year - it wasn't everyone marching under a single banner, there were lots of individual placards, lots of humour being used and much more creativity," says Flood.
