In an age where social and political unrest is as widespread as ever, the protest poster itself has become a symbol of true resistance. As part of their 68th edition, VISIONAIRE magazine has created a special open-source issue featuring ten original protest posters designed by key artists and activists, providing us with the essential tools needed to have your voice heard.
Each artist focuses on a key aspect of activism which lights a fire within them, and the results are as powerful as they are inspirational. Continuing her fight against the opioid crisis and the Sackler family, photographer Nan Goldin’s poster depicts a tub of painkillers simply rebranded as “killers”, while artists Zoe Buckham and Hank Willis Thomas unite the #BlackLivesMatter movement with women’s equal rights to give one bold statement: “VOTE”.
Actress Tilda Swinton, rapper Pusha T, and designer Vivienne Westwood also have their say on gun violence, criminal justice, and climate change respectively. Swinton is enlisted by photographer and film-maker Katerina Jebb in a striking poster featuring Jebb’s signature camera-less photography style, which places a scan of the actress’s distinctive face front-and-centre as she demands people to disarm. Meanwhile, Vivienne Westwood, who has a long history of activism – recently telling Dazed “I think all activists are motivated by the same thing... it’s just who you are” – uses her poster to highlight the terrifying reality that much of the world could become uninhabitable land after an overall temperature rise of just five degrees.
VISIONAIRE 68 NOW! Is free and available to all from Monday 29th October here, as well as on Reddit. Also available is a limited ’deluxe edition’ featuring a collectors series of posters, which have all been expertly printed on canvases to be displayed or put to use at rallies, conventions, and marches.
