Posters 101: Resistance is a Language

For over 200 years, working class and oppressed people have been codifying their resistance and solidarity in iconographic form. Honoré Daumier painted The Uprising in 1848, featuring a young man with a raised fist, and this simple human gesture has been reproduced in millions of variations since. In this alternative world of signs and symbols, pink triangles become powerful icons of AIDS activism, red wedges defeat white supremacy, and houses raise their fists against rent increases.

This iconography makes up a language; putting the icons in different arrangements lead to new meanings. Like written languages, the "words" and "phrases" that can be built from these graphics are practically infinite. But unlike more traditional languages, there are not a finite number of characters, with new iconography always being created.

Join Josh MacPhee to learn more about “resistance as a language” and use it to create political posters.

This 2.5-hour workshop will be organized into sections:

1. Key Concepts: Resistance as language; Iteration as creative engine; Political graphics as enduring design.
2. Work Time: Participants will have access to a ton of printed icons of resistance, and invited to work primarily using collage methods to create new poster designs.
3. Production Time: We will explain how 2-color image printing works on a Risograph duplicator and support participants in printing multiple copies of their posters as time permits.

Participants will leave with several handouts to support you on your poster-making journey in the future, including Resistance Is a Language zine, a Hands-Off Trans Kids printed poster, and a We Want Everything newspaper. You will also have the opportunity to trade/swap posters with all participants, so ideally you will leave with a small poster collection!

Josh MacPhee is a founding member of the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative (Justseeds.org) and Interference Archive, a public collection of cultural materials produced by social movements (InterferenceArchive.org). He is the author of An Encyclopedia of Political Record Labels, and co-editor of Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics and Culture. He regularly works with community and social justice organizations building agit-prop and consulting on cultural strategy.

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