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Hope to Nope at the Design Museum
The new exhibition in London investigates the relationship between visual media and political change
In an era of political upheaval and with the growing impact of online platforms on our daily lives, a new exhibition at London's Design Museum seeks to unpack and explore the emergence of new visual languages that are influencing our views, communities and institutions like never before.
Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008–2018 starts with the global financial crash of 2008, and guides its audience through key events that followed, including the election of Barack Obama, the worldwide Occupy movement, the Arab Spring, Brexit and Donald Trump's presidency. The challenging journey will assess the significant rise of social media conversations across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, dissecting online content to explore how trending hashtags, digital artwork and memes have impacted milestone political movements over the past ten years.
From "hope", as represented by the iconic Barack Obama campaign poster by Shepard Fairey, to the many imitations that followed, including the Donald Trump "nope" meme, the exhibition will be split into three main sections. Taking a politically impartial stance throughout, the exhibition uncovers in the first section, Power: the establishment's use of propaganda to inflict control, with a lens on North Korea. Protest, the largest section of the exhibition, looks to the placards and posters used by activists and demonstrators. Last year's Grenfell Tower disaster is among the events featured, reflecting the importance of graphic design in creating solidarity within a community. The last section, Personality, delves into the characteristics of those in powerful positions, assessing the caricature-like ways Donald Trump is represented in modern art, in contrast to the Labour party "superhero" Jeremy Corbyn.
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Co-curators Margaret Cubbage, from the Design Museum, and Lucienne Roberts from GraphicDesign&., have also partnered with audience intelligence platform Pulsar to create a series of data visualisations. These dynamic displays will allow the audience to interact with social discussions in real-time and thoroughly analyse the extent of the extraordinary reach of social networking. With over 160 objects and installations to engage with, visitors can also expect to have their future read by an All-Seeing Trump, walk the streets of Brazil and work on Wall Street.
Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008–2018 is at the Design Museum from 28 March to 12 August; designmuseum.org
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