Visions of Peace and Justice

Last night's lecture at CCSF was great. Designers from Ink Works Press, Design Action and Tumis spoke about the work they do for social justice causes and the history of political art from the US, Cuba and France. It was pretty fascinating and I'm interested to get a book by one of the speakers, Lincoln Cushing, on Cuban poster art called Revolucion. M Belle, you may like his book on Chinese Poster Art. I was particularly intrigued by one of the ideas shared by Favianna from Tumis, who explained, in reference to designing a poster for the cause of the disappearing and mutilated women of Juarez, her desire to steer away from showing images of women as weak or victims, but instead show empowered women putting up missing signs and organizing in the name of the cause. Subtle difference in focus but monumental in impact I thought. I'd like to remember this idea in my own design work.

In February, the Graphic Communications department also hosted a slideshow and lecture by Emory Douglas, the former Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party. He is the man responsible for all the amazing poster art of the BPP. I saw a show at Yerba Buena in SOMA about the BPP a couple of years ago and MOCA in Los Angeles recently had a show of his work. He was a great speaker and I really enjoyed how he shared the context of the images. He addressed the issue of violence as self defense against police brutality and one of his more interesting quotes was how he and the BPP had a "law book in one hand, shotgun in the other". His graphic style is amazing, see pic: