Protest posters of different sizes cover Sue Berman's dining table at her Swanson home. Each captures a piece of Auckland's recent history, reflecting concerns of the times.
"Poster art is one of those interesting things because, really, the aim is to have it right out there. It's not as if it is a collectible in the same way.
"But, also, the further you get historically the more precious it becomes as part of the historical context of the time," says Ms Berman, an oral historian with Kotare Trust.
The charitable trust is mounting an exhibition of about 160 political protest posters at the Art Station Gallery in Ponsonby, documenting the struggle for social justice over the last 35 years. The exhibition opens on September 20.
"At Kotare, we have workshops where some of the younger people that come, many of them weren't born at the time when a lot of these posters were created in the 70s, 80s, 90s," she says. "They're really curious about what this was about. There were lovely intergenerational stories being told where the poster was sort of the talking point. I quickly realised the value of that. So I'm hoping with the exhibition we'll have more of those."
Most of the collection came from the Auckland Unemployed Workers' Rights Centre and the Workers' Education Association when these groups closed their offices and had nowhere to store the posters.
"It's a collection that has come to the trust through people depositing their posters with us," she says. "They come from a range of social justice movements and, in some ways, it's the very strength of the collection."
The collection, though, is not limited to social justice movements. There are posters which proclaim anti-racism messages to environmental protection advocacy. And there are some which celebrate festivals.
The posters document how thinking has changed. Before the 1980s, for example, the Maori movement called for declaring the Treaty of Waitangi a fraud.
"They decided that people, then, knew what they were signing. And so the cry changed to 'honour the treaty'. If you look at the content of the treaty, it was good to call to honour the treaty rather than the treaty as a fraud," she explains.
On the other hand, the collection shows how some issues remain unchanged: welfare reform, rising unemployment, mining and asset sales.
"A lot of these posters are current, as they were then. I think there have been some 'wins' along the way but there are fundamental issues still reflected by these movements."
Ms Berman says the exhibition is not definitive. She hopes people who have been active in those movements will come to the exhibition and share their knowledge.
"There's a lot to learn from studying our history and from seeing the way things were done. This is one way really of doing that and then sharing it. Giving it back actually is really important to the people who created it in the first place." rowena.orejana@theaucklander.co.nz
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Compiling the exhibition has revealed how poster art has changed over the decades. "There were all these posters from the late 70s to the 80s right through the 90s then, suddenly, in the noughties, when the whole internet age is really embedded, there's hardly any posters," says Ms Berman. Now most posters are issued electronically. "We're not getting this really hand screened-printed layered kind of poster creation anymore."
She says, though, many people seem interested in reviving it. The exhibition will let visitors create and paste up their own poster, adding an element of participation to current political expression.
DETAILS
What Art/Movement: Political poster art in Aotearoa.
Where Artstation Toi Tu Gallery, 1 Ponsonby Rd, Newton, Tamaki Makaurau-Auckland.
When Tuesday, September 20 to Saturday, October 1.
Further details www.kotare.org.nz or contact Sue Berman 021 041 4427.