#protest-posters

#protest-posters

The San Francisco Poster Syndicate originated in 2014, when adjunct instructors at San Francisco Art Institute were forming a union. Art Hazelwood, one of the syndicate's founding members, taught screen-printing there and was part of the bargaining team. He and his students started printing posters using salvaged "slop ink" - everything leftover from a day of art classes, mixed together in a bucket - and put them all over campus. The posters of that era were all gray, Hazelwood, now 64, recalls.

Authoritarian governments have always suppressed protest and dissent, but democracies have done so as well. Ironically, we are now witnessing increasing restrictions on the right to protest from governments whose very foundations were built through the kinds of protest they now seek to suppress. Historically social crises reach the mainstream via protest - which can take many forms - this helps society reevaluate and evolve, making it more understanding and tolerant.