'Get Up, Stand Up : Changing the World With Posters' at MIMA

MIMA Brussels has its next chapter on civil disobedience ready for you. Opening May 9, “Get Up, Stand Up - Changing The World With Posters (1968 - 1973)” takes you through the past history and current relevance of graphic protest movement posters created between 1968 and 1973. Those 6 years of political and social unrest will forever be remembered in France, the U.S. and around the globe as the years where people strongly yearned and protested for equality, dignity, freedom and justice. And luckily, the silkscreen printing technique changed the game. Author and curator Michaël Lellouche owns a collection spanning more than 1600 posters printed from ’68 till ’73 and has created a striking selection especially for this new MIMA experience.

Coming from Paris, Prague, England, Athens, even Berkeley and Palestine, these timeless images transcend their heterogenous thematics and feel just as relevant with the mind-boggling happenings in the world of today (don’t even get me started). Where we now have social media, the issues remain the same: civil rights, the environment, war, minority repression, peace, jobs, feminism and sexism. The Black Panthers’ 'Black Power' and ‘Move On Over Or We’ll Move On Over You’, Sois jeune et tais-toi', ‘Hell No, We Won’t Go’, 'Power to the people' and 'Make love not war' are just a few of the iconic slogans that students and artists armed themselves with against the established powers that be. Not only are these images beautiful works of design, they’re acerbic reminders of how slow progress can be.

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You really want to take some time to soak up the messages contained in more than 400 posters and objects from 30 different countries. Also, the museum will house an installation of the historic work 'Frappez les gradés', created in 1969 by Julio Le Parc.

On May 27, you can join a lecture by Lincoln Cushing, archivist, author and American expert on the graphic history of social and political movements.

Throughout the exhibition run, MIMA will also host creative workshops on the protest poster theme.