Josh MacPhee is a designer, artist, and archivist. He is a founding member of the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative and co-editor of Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics and Culture. He has authored or edited a half dozen books about the intersection of cultures and politics, most recently Graphic Liberation: Image Making and Political Movements (2024) and An Encyclopedia of Political Record Labels (2019).

For over 20 years he has organized the Celebrate People’s History poster project. He co-founded and helps run Interference Archive, a public collection of cultural materials produced by social movements. He regularly works with community and social justice organizations building agit-prop and consulting on cultural strategy.

GV Arts Celebration: Graphic Liberation: Image Making and Political Movements, a presentation by Josh MacPhee

Tuesday, October 29, 2024, 6:30 – 8:00 pm, Free
Reception to immediately follow the presentation
Haas Center for Performing Arts – Louis Armstrong Theatre 
INT 100 Approved

Guest parking in Lot H is available for this event. Please note, ParkMobile spaces will be enforced & GVSU Students/Staff/Faculty should use the lots designated by their permits.

Graphic Liberation digs deep into the history, present, and future of political image making. The discussion will revolve around a set of core questions related to individual vs. social expression, image reproducibility/ownership/copyright, and responsibilities between artists and movements.

It is now commonplace to hear about “the power of art.” But the power to do what? What is the role of image and aesthetic in social change? Political culture maker and researcher Josh MacPhee has been asking variations of this question for over 30 years. Throughout 2021 and 2022 he held a series of in depth conversations with some of the most accomplished political graphics makers across the globe to further engage questions around art and design, political efficacy, individual and collective authorship, and the tensions between the social and individual in cultural production. These discussions, held under the banner of Graphic Liberation, chart the importance of political aesthetics in our society, from the struggle for community power and control by the Black Panther Party, agitation during the AIDS crisis from ACT-UP, the fight against apartheid in South Africa and Palestine, as well as ongoing organizing against nuclear power, for housing, and international solidarity in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe and here at home.

There is so much valorization of self-expression in our society that we rarely question it. When do we ask, “If self-expression is truly so radical, then how come it is really the only form of expression I’m allowed?” Because let’s be honest, almost all collective expression is suppressed. Whether it is brutal crackdowns on Black Lives Matter or Gaza Ceasefire protests, police infiltration of Quaker peace groups, or billion dollar anti-union consulting firms, the power of collective expression is clearly the forbidden fruit.

Social movement culture is a collective tradition that people have been practicing for hundreds of years. Every time we design a t-shirt for a community group, a placard for a demonstration, or a flyer to organize with our neighbors for a stop sign on our block, we are connected to everyone who has done these things before.

The pace of life today, deeply influenced by the speed of social media and the flood of information we track 24/7, makes it difficult to understand the context and know the histories of the images we take in. It’s easy to feel adrift in a sea of images—our visual landscape is something that happens to us, instead of being created with our participation. This weekend is designed to interrogate this, to open up small channels that help all of us move from passive receiver (and replicator) to active maker of visual culture—to connect iconography with issues we care about, and use it to address those issues.

GV Arts Celebration: Graphic Liberation: A Conversation About Culture as a Tool of Transformation

Wednesday, October 30, 2024, 1:30-3:00 pm, free
Louis Armstrong Theater, Haas Center for the Performing Arts
INT 100 Approved

Guest parking in Lot H is available for this event. Please note, ParkMobile spaces will be enforced & GVSU Students/Staff/Faculty should use the lots designated by their permits.

Let’s be honest, almost all collective expression is suppressed. 

Josh MacPhee will be joined by some of the most accomplished political graphics makers across the globe—Daniel Drennan ElAwar, Nafisa Ferdous, and others—to discuss the importance of political aesthetics in our society. From the struggle for community power and control by the Black Panther Party, agitation during the AIDS crisis from ACT-UP, the fight against apartheid in South Africa and Palestine, as well as ongoing organizing against nuclear power, fair housing, and international solidarity, social movement culture is a collective tradition people have been practicing for generations. How can you be an active maker of visual culture?