I was in Manchester just after Christmas and had time to visit the Urbis 'exhibition centre about city life'.
What a lovely g. There's currently a retrospective of the work of Emory Douglas, a prolific graphic artist who produced materials for the cause of the Black Panther movement.
It's a thorough exhibition which first makes the case for the foundation of the Black Panther Party for Self Defence, then charts its development and intersperses Douglas's work. There's a fantastic variety of scale, media and space, which I found a little overwhelming with only 30 minutes to spend there.
I don't know enough about the subject to comment on the content of the show, but aside from the beautiful woodcut-style posters, I found one aspect really interesting. As visitors are on their way out of the space, they're invited to contribute their own thoughts and observations.
The good ones are digitally photographed and printed out directly in the space, and then hung alongside.
This one from a previous visitor (and a previous philosopher) was a particular favourite:
Audience participation seems to be a key thing in a lot of public exhibitions these days, but what I like about this example is how appropriate to the subject matter it seemed to me. It's also non-age-specific. Using the chalk, throwing your thoughts up in a placard-shaped space, and having your input valued equally with everyone else, embodied the spirit of revolution and empowerment that I took away from my short visit to the show.
With participation and engagement so important in creative work, this show is definitely an encouragement to always try to make your medium of engagement appropriate to the brand, message, or whatever. It's so much more effective that way.
As an aside, isn't it interesting how the poster art of mass-movements has traditionally had a very hand-made feel to it. Douglas's work reminded me a lot of the '68 posters from Paris. Maybe these are the only two examples, I can't think of any more right now. Guerilla Girls was usually more polished, from the work I've seen. Maybe it's not such a strong characteristic after all.