Catalogue Number
NMLH.2023.69.5
Object Name
Poster
Title
Dissent
People
Mary Shelley
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 fifth poster in the series; it features an illustration
of urban slums and workers marching through the streets carrying a banner whilst a sketch of Frankenstein rests in the lower right corner. Red text over the top reads "DISSENT" whilst smaller text at the bottom of the poster reads: "Crowded and unhealthy urban conditions linked to widespread exploitation in the factories resulted in growing political struggles demanding industrial and social reform. Based on these struggles Utopian Socialists, Anarcho-syndicalists and Marxists all attempted to create another version of society based upon the idea that material wants could be universally satidfied given another form of technology and production. The 19thC marks the triumph of science and technology. Nevertheless a mood of despondency grew as many of the hopes placed in science and technology and with it political reform remained unrealised. Typical of this mood was the creation of the symbol of Frankenstein by Mary shelley to express the fear that science might cease to be a slave of
man and become instead his master and destroyer.
