Posters, Politics, Protest: British Political Posters
Event Information
Description
Posters have been used in every General Election of the 20th century. In the run-up to the General Election 2015, curators, campaigners and designers will explore the significance of the poster to the past, current and future British political debate.
Topics will include the history of posters, design as activism, the management and manipulation of billboards, subversions and internet spoofs and the influence of new media on how political posters are conceived and deployed.
Confirmed speakers include Jeremy Sinclair founder of Saatchi & Saatchi and creator of many Conservative Party’s most famous adverts.
Come and debate posters at the People’s History Museum Manchester (PHM), organised in collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum and Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU).
Programme for the day:
09:30
Registration and coffee
10.00
Welcome and Introduction, Louise Sutherland (PHM) Margaret Timmers
(V & A)
10.05
An Overview of the British Political Poster
James Thompson (Senior Lecturer in Modern History, University of Bristol)
10.30
11:45
Posters and the archive: The political meaning of poster collections
Chris Burgess (Curator, People’s History Museum), Monica Cash (Deputy Librarian, Linen Hall Library, Belfast) and Cathy Ross (Honorary Research Fellow, Museum of London)
Discussion Chair: Catherine Flood (Curator Prints, V & A)
12.00
Organising Election Campaigns
Conservative Party Campaigns
Jeremy Sinclair (Chairman at M&C Saatchi. Jeremy Sinclair was one of the founders of Saatchi and Saatchi who has regulalry devised political campaigns for the Conservative Party.)
Labour Party Campaigns
Speaker tbc
13.00
13.15
Discussion Chair: Margaret Scammel
Lunch Provided
14.15
Art and Design as Activism
Suzy Mackie and Pru Stevenson (See Red Woman’s Workshop)
Ross Colquhon ( Designer and member of Artists and Creatives for Scottish Independence)
Noel Douglas (Occupy Movement)
Clifford Singer (My David Cameron.com)
Discussion: Chair Matilda Pye, V & A
16.15
Refreshments
16.35
17.00
Art as a political weapon
Peter Kennard and Cat Picton Philipps
Closing Words Dominic Wring
17.15
Close
All programmes very occasionally subject to change without warning.
Poster Generator Day
Please note that Manchester School of Art and MMU are organising creative poster events on 9 and 10 October that will culminate in a Poster Parade from MMU All Saints Campus to the People’s History Museum (PHM) on 10 October. There is also be the opportunity to visit MMU Special Collections to view posters from its collections on the afternoon of Thursday 9 October 2014. This contains about 4,200 posters, including the Philip Granville Collection and about 3,000 British posters from the 1970s to date.
