Olga Tsara
The Art of Revolution
Political Posters in the RedPlanet Archive
HOW IS the impact of any social or artistic enterprise to be judged? On the one hand, as an organization, RedPlanet no longer exists, having been unable to secure a viable income source at a critical point in the late 1990s. On the other hand, the amalgamated histories of the two poster workshops that combined in 1992 to form RedPlanet (Redletter Community Workshop Inc. and Another Planet Posters) contributed almost 25 years of influential, accomplished and often ground-breaking poster production. Its survival as a community-based, alternative poster press in Melbourne, particularly when most other Australian poster presses had long dissolved or become commercial enterprises, is a significant achievement. Out of this history, three defining characteristics of RedPlanet emerged. Firstly, it produced highly influential work. The merit of the political posters themselves saw the organization achieve world recognition in poster design. Secondly, the artistic and administrative staff of RedPlanet were aware of the demands of modern management trends placed on it by its various funding bodies, and evolved to suit the times. Far from being an anachronistic artists’ collective that struggled through the changing social and economic landscape of the 1980s and early 1990s, RedPlanet was able to accommodate these changes while remaining true to its central mission. And thirdly, the organization never lost sight of the make-up of its clientele — groups predominately from lower socio-economic and non-English speaking backgrounds from Melbourne's inner and northern suburbs — and their prevailing needs.
These three defining characteristics of RedPlanet (which were also key in the two organizations that combined to create it) will be explored further as the individual histories of Redletter Community Workshop and Another Planet Posters are examined. Before these histories are explored, some wider background might be useful.
The history of RedPlanet cannot be separated from the recent history of collectivism and community arts. The makeup and operations of Australia's poster workshops were heavily influenced by Sydney's Earthworks Poster Collective. It was the first poster collective in Australia, operating for eight years from 1972–1980. It flourished in the anti-elitist decade of the 1970s which saw an ‘anti-commodity’ push in the wider art world, where artists produced work such as happenings, performance, installations, video, and silk-screened posters, that were ephemeral by nature. Poster artists also quoted or appropriated other art works in their posters as a strategy to undermine the art world's worship of originality. The aim was to produce works which were more interesting for their ‘making’ or effect, than for their collectability.
1The early poster workshops were artist-run collectives, where individual artists did not sign their work and where all members were paid the same regardless of function or qualification. Not signing the posters was the artists’ attempt to undermine the prevailing concept of the ‘genius artist'. The artists believed that the purpose of art can be to heighten the
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local community's sense of identity and self-esteem (two decades later, the term ‘social capital’ was coined to describe this), and that art can be produced collectively to make political statements and influence social action, rather than make statements about how the artist feels.
The group at Earthworks operated on a democratic basis and decisions were made collectively. The philosophy of the group, which was based on leftist politics and feminist principles, led to the formation of community arts programs and a policy of providing access to the means of image and message-making to the local population.
2 These basic operating principles and philosophies were to influence and provide the model on which poster collectives that followed based themselves. Melbourne's poster collectives, like Redletter and Another Planet, usually had Committees of Management (of which all staff were members) and broad community membership (usually for a small annual fee).
The community arts movement had its origins in the social and political struggles of the 1960s and 1970s around issues like the Vietnam War, feminism and Aboriginal land rights. The driving philosophy behind it was the belief that, as a matter of principle, it was everybody's right to participate in the shaping of the world in which they lived. Its emergence saw the rise of three important artistic concepts: the idea of ‘artworker’ as opposed to ‘artist'; the move towards cultural democracy where the production of art was participatory (between artworker and the community); and the notion that the consumption of art was meant for a wider audience than ‘the gallery set'.
Community arts received official support with the election of the Whitlam government when the Community Arts Committee of the Australia Council was established in 1973. With the establishment of the Community Arts Board of the Australia Council (which later became the Community Cultural Development Unit - CCDU), community arts looked more towards the state for funding, rather than radical groups like trade unions or socialist groups. A number of theorists have commented on the inherent danger of linking community arts with state funding. Sandy Kirby warned of the danger that the movement would lose its direction and purpose which historically manifested itself in radical political and cultural initiatives.
3 But did the pursuit of state funding, and therefore the striving to meet state imposed criteria for success, dilute the political punch of community arts in general and our poster workshops in particular? Does the funding source necessarily become a master which community arts must serve? These are critical questions to ponder, as we now examine the two histories of Redletter and Another Planet.
Redletter 1977–1991
By the mid 1980s, Redletter Press had established itself as an important player in Melbourne's community art movement. What began in 1977 as a two-person, low-technology outfit, operated by the Brunswick Unemployment Group (BUG), was expanded by the artist Bob Clutterbuck to become the Brunswick Work Co-Operative in October 1979. The Brunswick City Council funded the purchase of an offset press and a platemaker, and it began operating
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at ‘Shopfront 380’ in Sydney Road, Brunswick, in November 1979. Clutterbuck described the workshop in the catalogue for the exhibition
Backstreet Visions:
It measured about 10’ x 10’. A crude table of undressed timber was large enough for a single 30” x 40” base board. Tins of ink and turps, mixing containers, paper and rags were all kept in the hall. With the drying lines and work bench there was no room for storage inside. What was charitably called a screen print workshop was little more than a cupboard. Mercifully it had a window, which was both an ad hoc light table (artwork was taped to the window and traced) and our only ‘ventilation'. I use the word advisedly, as to open [the] window to clear the room of print fumes was to let in the pollution and din from Sydney Road.
4As the Brunswick Work Co-operative Ltd., the organization was structured so it could function as an umbrella for a variety of projects and operations. It once ‘sprouted a Food Coop, a theatre group, an offset press, as well as graphics and screenprinting'
5, and it planned to explore the feasibility of waste recycling and worm farming.
6On 29 August 1984 the organization incorporated and became Redletter Community Workshop Inc. With its incorporation came the formalization of its directions and philosophies, which were determined and articulated by a Co-ordinating Committee. At this point, the group's staff comprised an artist-in-residence, an artist-in-community, a printer and an administrator.
In the years leading up to incorporation, the collective that was to become Redletter Community Workshop changed its name and location a number of times. It had spent some time housed in Lynall Hall Community School after moving from Sydney Road,
7 and had operated under the names of Breadline Posters, Red Trouser Press, and Redletter Co-operative. The legal demands of incorporation (such as the legal need of a constitution, articles of association, and a formal management committee structure) changed its status from a loosely constituted community group, to a collective with a more formalized and structured approach.
As an incorporated body, Redletter articulated three main functions for itself. First and foremost, Redletter existed to provide access to modes of creative and political expression that were unavailable to many sections of the community. Community groups and individuals were encouraged to do their own designing and printing, using the workshop's facilities. Training and technical assistance was provided to facilitate this access, at cost price, particularly to marginalized sections of the community.
Secondly, issues-based projects were also initiated and co-ordinated by the artworkers, in consultation with community groups. The artworkers were commissioned to design and print posters, pamphlets, postcards, t-shirts, banners and fabric. Lastly, there was the production and dissemination of ‘house posters’, which involved artists working ‘in-residence’ to develop their own styles and techniques on more aesthetically experimental work.
Our society's realization that literacy was a prerequisite to participation in any democratic political system, brought about free education and free public libraries. The
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community's access to these institutions is now taken for granted as a basic right. Stemming from this is the belief that people have a right to create and communicate their own messages, and define and present their own images. For the Redletter collective, it stood to reason that access to the means of communication should be government-funded, just as libraries and schools were. This central belief saw Redletter make a key strategic decision in 1983 when the Victorian Ministry of Employment and Training withdrew its funding, placing it under the threat of imminent closure. Rather than minimize their community work in order to become a financially self-sufficient commercial enterprise - as was expected of them and as a number of other similar organizations had done — it successfully gained funding in 1984 from the Australia Council, and was able to re-position itself as a community arts provider rather than a fledgling printing operation in need of a helping hand from the government until it could fend for itself.
The retrospective exhibition, Backstreet Visions, held in 1986, was a celebration of Redletter's work over seven years. By that time, thousands of posters had been produced. The workshop had forged strong relationships with community groups and individuals, especially in Melbourne's northern suburbs. It had also come a long way in promoting the rise of the political poster as an art form as well as a vehicle for social comment.
Despite such success, however, by 1988 Redletter's future was on the line. It (and Another Planet) drew on two sources of funding from the Australia Council: the Visual Arts and Crafts Board (VACB) and the Community Cultural Development Unit (CCDU). As well as having its grant application for $22,800 to VACB rejected, Redletter now underwent an Australia Council CCDU review. The organization resolved to take steps to market itself more successfully, particularly to the Australia Council. To this end, it developed new economic strategies, re-organized its staff into defined job roles, expanded its range of services, vested greater responsibilities in its Co-ordinating Committee, and sought wider publicity.
8Management also proposed testing new strategies and opportunities for Redletter, in line with their marketing plan which identified a viable market for screen-printed textile products. For its funding, this move towards merchandising (some of which extended to the production of tea towels, scarves and wrapping paper) achieved its desired effect. The Australia Council review found that it should follow through with its Marketing Plan (drawn up by Making it Happen, a management consultancy firm), and that it should work with consultants to assess its aims and objectives. According to the Annual Report of 1990–1991, Redletter emerged from this review with flying colours.
Another Planet 1984–1991
Another Planet Posters began life as the Community Access Screenprinting Project in 1983, and became incorporated in 1984. The Screenprinting Project was funded by the Commonwealth Employment Project scheme. It was based on a proposal developed by Julia Church and Kath Walters (members of Bloody Good Graffix, a Melbourne University-based
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access and print service) to establish a community access screenprinting workshop in St Kilda. The project was so successful (producing about 20,000 posters) that it attracted further funding in 1984 from the Australia Council, with accommodation assistance from the Victorian Ministry for the Arts. The incorporated entity known as Another Planet was officially launched in April 1985.
Another Planet's artists were ideologically committed to working collaboratively with the community. Like Redletter, their services included commercial services and open access for the community. In 1986, facing a reduction in funding, Another Planet decided to seek cheaper accommodation and moved from 1–3 Inkerman Grove, St Kilda, to The Stables at 19 Duke Street, Richmond. For a peppercorn rental of $20 per annum to Richmond City Council, and with an Australia Council grant to install ventilation and prepare the ground floor, the 100- year-old National Trust-listed building was converted into a printing workshop. It was to be the location of the production of some of Australia's most accomplished and recognizable political posters.
1986 was also the year of the
Australian Way of Life Project. This project was, according to Julia Church, ‘for all those groups that are left out of all the publicity of what the Australian identity is.
9 Julia Church and Kath Walters worked with Aboriginal groups, the Young Women's Photographic Collective, the Trade Union Migrants Workers Centre, the Prostitute Workers Collective, the Women's Council for Homelessness and Addiction, and the Tenants Union to produce 13 posters and two billboards. The project was ambitious in scope and aspiration. Over 15 years later the posters serve as documents to remind us of the diverse make-up of our society, and the efforts made by this group of artists to provide various community groups with a voice and a means by which they can define and present themselves.
The billboard component of the Australian Way of Life Project evolved from a desire to expose larger and more diverse audiences to community arts. A key challenge faced by Another Planet was how to find the wide audience that it sought for its alternative voice. The high fines for illegal poster billing combined with the corporate sector's monopoly of expensive public space, meant that poster co-operatives had to think of new ways to get their messages out in the streets. Political posters had high circulation, but it tended to be in cafes, bookshops or on people's fridges at home. Essentially, these posters were preaching to the converted. The biggest cost of the project was hiring the billboard sites. Venturing into new funding territory, Another Planet sought funds from the private sector. Levingston Posters were able to subsidize the cost of the sites. They also formed Community Billboard Promotions, a joint venture between Another Planet Posters, the Operative Painters’ and Decorators’ Union, the Building Workers’ Industrial Union and Moomba Festivals Ltd., which established semi-permanent billboards for community access on construction sites in the city.
The first billboard was
The Australian Dream? Australia Needs Public Housing.
10 Relatively small, it was to be hung on community billboards. The artists themselves posed for the photographs which were used as the artwork. The second billboard,
And the American
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Warship Sailed into the Sunset & Never Returned — Australia Nuclear Free and Non-Aligned, measured 3 × 6 metres and was produced for the Anti-Bases Campaign, Melbourne, a community organization affiliated to the Australian Anti-Bases Coalition. The Coalition had 150 affiliates, including church, trade union, environmental, student and Aboriginal organizations.
Another Planet produced other billboards in 1989 and 1991.
Plastic's got us, hook, line and sinker, by Carole Wilson, Peter Curtis and the Friends of the Earth, (originally produced as a poster in 1988) was displayed on 100 sites around metropolitan Melbourne and country Victoria. The sites were donated by Australian Posters, a major billboard company, after negotiations with the Outdoor Advertising Association of Australia (OAAA). This image won the prestigious Special Jury Prize at the 1992 3rd Chaumant Poster Festival in France. It was offered for sale to galleries and museums, and reprinted as a poster by Carol Porter in November of 1992.
11The workshop also produced ‘house posters'. These works usually had lasting artistic merit, and served as a means to gain fame and enhance the reputation of the workshops for poster design excellence around Australia and the world. Another Planet's artist-in-residence program began in 1987 allowing artworkers to produce work that extended their style and gave them the freedom to move away from the standard range of designs produced under time constraints with clients or community groups. It was decided that the posters for 1987 would address aboriginal issues, given that 1988 was approaching with its Bicentennial Celebrations.
The artist-in-residence posters from 1987 and 1988 stand, arguably, as the workshop's best work. The artists understood that the audiences of the day had a sophisticated visual vocabulary and any designs they created, either in the form of house posters or commissioned work, had to be engaging and powerful.
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