Catalogue Number
NMLH.2023.61
Object Name
Poster
Title
Fanshen
Date
1972-1982
Description
The Poster Collective was a collective formed in 1971 at the Slade School of Art,  a group formed to initially produce posters in response to the miners strike and on the wars in both Vietnam and Ireland. It was formed on the basis of developing a coherent visual style, which addressed the political issues of the time. This included the armed struggles against colonialism in Africa, the struggle of women for equal rights and the continuing struggle against racism. The collective was active in the 70's and 80's, producing posters on a wide range of issues, including for educational purposes. The group was not-for-profit and used a variety of hand-printing techniques to create their posters. This is an orange and black and white poster with a printed scene in the centre is a scene where Chinese peasants are arguing with a landlord about rent. The bottom part of the poster says 'Every revolution creates new words; the Chinese Revolution created a whole new vocabulary. A most important
word was Janshen. Literally, it means to turn the body,to turn over.To China's hundreds of millions of landless peasants it meant to stand up ;to throw off the landlord yoke, to gain land, stock, implements and houses. But it meant much more than this; it meant to throw off superstition and study science, to abolish word-blindness and learn to read, to cease considering women as chattels and establish equality between the sexes. It meant to enter a new world.' William Hinton
