Objects that help change the world

By Daniel Nelson

Karnataka State Farmers’ Association sign

Image by V&A

Objects on display include home-made teargas mask, a graffiti machine, a giant inflatable cobblestone, folk art textiles (with political messages that the authorities initially failed to notice), defaced banknotes, a DIY open-source drone powered by a mobile phone, an easy-to-conceal finger puppet used to mock Syria’s President Assad.

The protests in which these and other objects were used celebrate the “empowering and terrifying idea” that our actions (or inactions) can make a difference.

More formally – after all, it is staged by a prestigious art and design museum – it “explores objects of art and design from around the world that have been celebrated by grassroots social movements as tools of social change.”

In the words of museum director Martin Roth, “This exhibition celebrates the creative ‘disobedience’ of designers and makers who question the rules. It shows that even with the most limited of resources, ordinary people can take design into their own hands.”

For most of us, ‘design’ will not be uppermost in our minds: inspiring examples of protest will be what we want to see, whether shoe parts turned into a Palestinian slingshot, Argentinian saucepan lids (which helped drum out four presidents in three weeks) or a free game app that guides players through the production of the device on which they are playing.

To win, you must force children to mine coltan in the Congo, prevent worker protest-suicides in a Chinese factory, manage Western consumers, and dispose of hazardous ewaste in Pakistan.

Four days after its release, the app was banned from Apple’s iTunes store.

Another exhibit features Floodnet, which overwhelmed the websites of the Pentagon and the Mexican presidency and also attacked the World Trade Organization online while people blockaded the streets and stopped its conference in Seattle. But overall digital design doesn’t get much of a look-in: the exhibition is essentially about the importance – and pleasure – of turning up in person and doing something. Clicktivism doesn’t do for it for the men and women behind these objects.

The debate about clicktivism, or indeed about the ethics of protest or its critics, are absent, apart from a few comments on a couple of videos and a couple of hints, such as the map of protests since 1979, which suggests a popular global reaction to neo-liberalism.

That’s a pity, but that failing harks back to what the V&A is. Given the museum’s brief, Roth is right to describe this as “a brave and unusual exhibition; these are brave and unusual designers, We are proud to present their work.”

I’m not sure what we can deduce from the objects, except that a good slogan is always effective (“Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?”), of the ingenuity of protesters (the Barbie Liberation Organization switched the voices of 500 talking GI Joe and Barbie dolls and returned them to stores in an act of “shopgiving”), and that however great the oppression new ways of protest can be found – like the embroidered Mexican handkerchiefs that helped focus attention on the 26,000 “disappeared”.

And perhaps most importantly, that simplicity also works. In response to officials who arrogantly entered homes without warning, beating women and illegally seizing property, farmers put up a large protest sign. It did the trick and forced a new arrangement.

The most effective innovation? Perhaps the lock-on device that enables Palestinian protesters to lock themselves to an israeli barrier or Greenpeace activists to stop roadbuilders.

·         Disobedient Objects, free, is at the V&A, South Kensington, SW7, until 1 February. Info: http://www.vam.ac.uk/disobedientobjects

·         Also at the V&A: A World to Win. Posters of Protest and Revolution, until 2 November: http://www.vam.ac.uk/whatson/event/3171/a-world-to-win-posters-of-protest-and-revolution-4588/

and

Rapid Response Collecting, until 15 January 2015 /

+ Museum events connected to Disobedient Objects 

+ Friday 29 August, artists and designers in a programme of performances, film, installations, debates, guests and DJs, with bars, food, and late-night exhibition openings, 6.30pm, free    

+ Saturday 8 November, Curating Conflicts: Disobedient Objects one-day conference, challenges in archiving and curating objects of recent and historical political conflict., with Josh McPhee and Jen Hoyer from the Interference Archive New York, Liberate Tate, Michael MacMillan, Pogus Caesar, Jonathan Barnbrook, Ruth Morrow and Carrie Reichardt.  £25/£20/£15 

+ Tuesday 9 December, John Pilger: On Protest, £9/£, 6.30–7.30pm    

 + Wednesday 24 September, Disobedient Objects: Catherine Flood introductory talk, 1pm, free

+ Sunday 7 September, The Mini Protest Banner  workshop, Sarah Corbett, 11am-4pm, free

+ Tuesday 18 November, workshop on  the role of technology, making and DIY media in activism and social change, 2-6pm

+ Friday 22 August, young people’s collective tour of the exhibition