Disobedient Objects

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Social movements, in contesting established ways of seeing and acting, find themselves beset by a long and recent history of misrepresentation, in which they are ignored or maligned by mass media while simultaneously being appropriated for their vitality and authenticity. Museums are not immune to this process. In our approach we were inspired by the traditions of history from below, but also by methods of participatory action research, as ways to engage with ongoing movements. These admittedly awkward terms stand for rejecting institutional privilege and assumed expertise. We aimed to be guided by their principals of aiming to shape research as a socially-just activity that researches with, rather than on, communities; recognising participants as experts and opening the curation process to be fundamentally shaped by them. This involved a series of workshops, with lenders and other movement participants who had a connection to these objects, which shaped the exhibition’s ideas and physical design. Designs that were created as open source are often then developed for commercial use, but there are also commercial products that are appropriated for subversive purposes.

The utilitarian aesthetic of the user manual finds its way into a series of how-to guides – illustrated instructions to make objects featured in the exhibition. These guides were applied to the invitations and are available as well as tear-off sheets in the exhibition itself. Daily updates on the latest design and architecture vacancies advertised on Dezeen Jobs. Plus occasional news. Dezeen Jobs Weekly Carrie Reichardt: The relationship of my craft to my activism is that I feel that I use all my skills as an artist to try and bring about social change; to try and use it for good. Working in the communities or with the public work that I do, I’m always just trying to use whatever talent I have as a vehicle to help put forward, you know, push forward a social agenda. Coral Stoakes, I wish my boyfriend was as dirty as your policies. Image courtesy of the V&A Museum. Main image:Inflatable cobblestone, action of Eclectic Electric Collective during the General Strike in Barcelona. Image courtesy of Oriana Eliçabe/Enmedio.info Craft skills such as sewing will be represented by items including hand-stitched textiles from Chile that document political violence and a banner created for the Unite union in the UK.When we have talked about the project, we have often been met with surprise. It many ways it feels counter-intuitive for this exhibition to appear in “the world’s greatest museum of art and design,” founded at the height of British colonialism and which predominantly displays objects of elite consumption. The project has been described to us an institutional critique and there is inevitably some truth in this. It also prompts a question about recuperation. In the nineteenth century it was claimed that museums could prevent riots, sedition and drunkenness by mopping up working class leisure time. What happens when you place disobedient objects at the heart of a building that was conceived for such obedient purposes? Talking about movements outside of the reach of those movements always involves discomfort. This exhibition forces the question of what a museum does to disobedient objects and what disobedient objects do to a museum? These objects embody the kinds of knowledge Stefano Harney and Fred Moten call ‘the undercommons.’Exhibiting them we test the museum’s claim to truly be a public institution for learning and debate.

In the same section of the show we have “bloc books”, painted shields in the form of giant works of literature and philosophy made by students protesting at education cuts. When they demonstrated, the students were effectively being defended by culture, and by striking the shields, the police not only invoked the destruction of books but were also forced into a performance without realising it. The identity is centred around the transformation of everyday objects into weapons of social change. Rather than placing the focus on the exhibition title, a call for social action takes centre stage: a silhouette of an ordinary object, superimposed with directions on how to transform it into an object for political activism. As several artists and observers at the exhibit preview noted, there is a time for peaceful protest, and a time for action. Disobedient Objects at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London gathers together such items from around the world. Graffiti-spraying drones adapted from remote controlled cars, teargas masks made from water bottles, riot shields fashioned from layered cardboard. It’s a rich collection of remarkable objects that paint a picture of human ingenuity in unlikely scenarios. Now, to move on to the Zapatista Dolls; these are quite different for the process involved. Shortly before I started focusing entirely on Disobedient Objects, I was actually mount making for the Small Stories exhibition at the Museum of Childhood, where I made mounts for objects like this little guy here:

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Spanning a period from the 1970s to the present day, the exhibition will include newspaper cuttings, how-to guides and film content to provide additional levels of context. Painted banners and placards featuring humorous or evocative slogans have also been selected. Chilean Arpilleras wall hanging: Dónde están nuestros hijos, Chile Roberta Bacic's collection. Photograph by Martin Melaugh