V&A Disobedient Objects

From a Suffragette tea service to protest robots, this exhibition is the first to examine the powerful role of objects in movements for social change. It demonstrates how political activism drives a wealth of design ingenuity and collective creativity that defy standard definitions of art and design. Disobedient Objects focuses on the period from the late 1970s to now, a time that has brought new technologies and political challenges. On display are arts of rebellion from around the world that illuminate the role of making in grassroots movements for social change: finely woven banners; defaced currency; changing designs for barricades and blockades; political video games; an inflatable general assembly to facilitate consensus decision-making; experimental activist-bicycles; and textiles bearing witness to political murders.

Poster and Badge

USA 1986-87

By the Silence= Death Project

The pink triangle was used in Nazi concentratration camps to mark out gay men. The 'Silence=Death' logo inverted this symbol. It created a powerful call to the gay community to unite and fight homophobia and inaction during the AIDS crisis. One of the creators of the logo was artist, writer and gay rights activist Avram Finkelstein. 

Badges Against Apartheid

South Africa and international, about 1980-94

These badges were made to support the struggle against apartheid in South Africa- a government- enforced system of racial segregation. Badges  were created by South Africans and liberation groups. These intimate objects made the struggle part of the lives of supporters far away, while for people in South Africa, badges demonstrated unity in the face censorship. The badges at the bottom right mark South Africans transition to free elections. 

News Reports about Barbie Liberation Organisation 

USA 1993

In 1993 the Barbie Liberation Organisation switched the voice boxes of around five hundred talking GI Joe and Barbie dolls and returned them to stores. The action, which we called 'shop-giving', was intended to highlight the gender stereo typing of children's toys. Everybody won: the stores sold the dolls twice, the consumer got an improved product and the news media had a field day with the story.

-Mike Bonanno 

'Bike Bloc' from Climate Camp, Copenhagen, 2009 (recreated 2014)

The Bike Bloc was part of the mass civil disobedience against the COP15 Climate Summit, Discarded bikes were welded into 'machines of creative resistance'. One carried a DJ who broadcasted via several bikes with independent speakers. Organised in swarms, bikes formed blockades and decoys supporting thousands on foot. They helped protesters breach the summits security cordon and hold an alternative peoples assembly, which some representatives left the summit to attend. 

The original Bike Bloc 'sound swarm' had its own soundtrack that used sounds ability to invade and take over public space. For this exhibition that soundtrack has been recomposed to also listen to the amplify the voice of other objects around it, including sounds and chants from different movements that intersect, resonate together and produce dissonances. 

-Filastine 

I really enjoyed the V&A exhibition I think it was interesting and it has been a good start to the new module and brief. I am now going to research further into movements in social change and other areas that interest me.