Feminist Posters @ Village

Today I went to Village bookshop in Thorntons arcade and saw the new See Red exhibition of feminist posters there. All the posters were from 1974-1990 and were so massively inspiring how humorous but still so effective and eye catching feminist art can be, and has been for years. There was a massive diversity as to the way the posters were made, some were all text, some were intricate paper-cut and some were screen printed. They all had slightly varying points to make and issues to raise and they all had varying degrees of severity in which they did this, but one thing was constant for me. They all depicted the strong side of women that doesn't feature enough in any kind of art, and for me (and I know I'm their target audience) that felt really empowering and special. I know it is only through in-equality that these posters need to exist to begin with, and thats really sad, but it was also massively inspiring to see women taking a stand and making these beautiful things with equally beautiful messages all gathered in one place. 

This really got me thinking about the stickers I've been making and how without even meaning to, most of my stickers were quite feminist in theme and message. I really like that and take it as a personal victory that during the visual narrative brief I was struggling to get to grips with talking about what interests me, and having a voice for something I'm passionate about, much less making that come across visually in any of my work. However during this brief I've jumped at the chance to talk about things that anger me and I've realised I do have a lot to say and illustration is a great way to articulate that especially if you're someone like me who finds words and speaking out loud quite difficult. Going forward I'm going to make more of an effort to consume media that talks about issues that I find interesting (as well as ones that don't) to educate myself further around those topics, hopefully it'll give me more to say on the matter and will make my voice in the illustration community a well informed one.