This display spans the East and West Bars, with fifteen boxes presenting posters of protest and resistance. This exhibition isn’t just about showing powerful political posters — it’s about introducing you to new creators, showing you different and accessible techniques and demystifying some of the politics/symbolism behind the works. We hope you leave inspired to make your own voice visible, remember political posters can be powerful and persuasive - your image is your voice.
Curators Note:
This is just a small selection from the hundreds of powerful posters that exist — ones that spoke to me personally - with FiLiAs core aims in mind, alongside a few of my own. As a practising artist, I’ve included notes on the creative processes and techniques that caught my attention. I’ve always found visuals more immediate than words — they reach people like me who think through images rather than language.
As you may have seen, we were refused permission to reproduce some posters by well-known organisations, who cited FiLiA’s stance on gender. If you think that’s unfair, you might consider writing to the archives that denied access. I’ve included the rejection letters here for transparency.
If you have any questions please email at artinresidence@filia.org.uk
Rachel
01 Crimes Against Women, Lala Rukh
02 Defaced Fiat Advertisement, Unknown
03 The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist, Guerilla Girls, Ridykeulous, XX
04 Let’s Vote Now, Unknown
05 Alone We Are Powerless… Together We Are Strong, See Red Women’s Workshop
06 Nicaragua Debe Sobrevivir | Nicaragua Must Survive,, Asociacion de Mujeres Nicaraguenses
07 What a Woman May Be, and Yet Not Have The Vote, Sufferage Atelier
08 Silent Fields, Rachel Ara
09 Just Once, Let Us Pull All Our Different Splinter Groups Together, Unknown
10 Lesbian Liberation Front D’Jèrri, Rachel Ara
11 Oil Spill Gulf Of Mexico, Marlena Buczek Smith
12 This Woman is Vietnamese, Liliana Porter
13 Campaign Against the Patriarchal Myth of Female “Virginity”, MALI
14 #FREEBETTY , Rachel Ara
00 Paper Bullets (Main Interpretation Board)
01 Crimes Against Women, Lala Rukh
Crimes Against Women
1985
Original Work (Lithograph, 67.6 x 44.8 cm)
Kindly reproduced with permission from Ms Maryam Rahman - The Lala Rukh Estate
Artist and activist Lala Rukh was a founding member of the Women’s Action Forum (1981, Pakistan). She was among fifteen women who publicly opposed General Zia-ul-Haq’s anti-women laws. Lala Rukh is regarded as a pioneer of feminist art and minimalist photographic practice in Pakistan, known for her pared-back drawings and quietly political imagery..
When government-controlled printers in Lahore refused to produce the Forum’s protest materials and newsletters, Rukh took matters into her own hands. She began screen printing—designing and producing many of the Women’s Action Forum’s bold and provocative posters calling for women’s rights and freedom. Crimes Against Women originates from this powerful body of work. This refusal to print feminist work still happens today - even in what we think of as free democracies.
The poster’s image is built from a collage of newspaper reports on crimes against women. By gathering these clippings into a single composition, the artist exposes the scale and pervasiveness of violence against women. It was likely assembled using newspaper, glue, and paint, then photographed before being printed as an offset lithograph for mass distribution — a popular technique from the 1960s onward.