Catalogue Number
NMLH.2023.69.1
Object Name
Poster
Title
Agricultural society
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 poster is part of a set, 'Future Fictions', produced when the collective moved to the North London Polytechnic is a set of posters reflecting on technological development and leads us to address environmental issues of today. This is the first poster in the set and reads "Agricultural society"
at the top. An illustration on the poster shows agricultural workers harvesting corn alongside a drawing of a ship setting sail across the ocean. Smaller text on the poster reads: "In 1500 the overwhelming majority of people still worked on the land and lived in close-knit, co-operative communities. The energy sources for the economy was drawn from renewable sources- wood, water, wind, animal and human power. Although travel was both slow and often perilous there was an expansion in voyages of 'discovery'. This age ('the Age of Exploration') brough with it expanding world trade and increasing numbers of wars. The developing scope of trade led to an expansion of the artisan and trading classes beyond the limits of the guilds. Also there was a centralisation of political and military power due to the incessant wars and with this, growing demand upon metallurgic foundations, arms works, and mines. It was these factors that the newly emerging forms of industrialism was to be based upon."
