Demonstration against UK visit by Donald Trump, Cambridge, 2017

The juxtaposition of image and text in public protest has a long history. My previous post focused on demonstrators’ placards and on the ingenious visual displays staged by Led by Donkeys on hoardings and projections.

Here I offer the first sequence in a purely visual chronology, showing some famous and some lesser-known examples of subversion (whether overtly political or overtly absurdist) for public consumption…

Anti-Nazi photomontage by ‘John Heartfield’ (Helmut Herzfeld) 1936

Notting Hill, Westbourne Park and Grand Union Canal,  London, 1970s, photos by Roger Perry

Conceptual artworks by US artist Jenny Holzer

Anonymous graffiti, vandalism and alterations

Anti-gentrification messages, East London

Protest as land art

A further (very well-chosen by Lyn McKelvie in 1996) selection of examples of photomontage, subvertising and ad-jamming follows here:

And Yet It Moves by John Heartfield

Rationalization Is On The March by John Heartfield

Creative print ads target plastic pollution

Powerful Environmental Ads

Creative print ads target plastic pollution…

Here, from Flashbak, are Richard Davis’ striking photos of Manchester in the 1980s and 90s, showing slogans and graffiti in their settings, alongside the people of Hulme:

Richard Davis’s Brilliant Photos of Hulme – 1980s and 1990s

For more examples of magazine texts, leaflets, posters and placards, see

Bamn (By Any Means Necessary): Outlaw Manifestos & Ephemera, 1965-1970 by Peter Stanstill and David Zane Mairowitz, Autonomedia 1999

And from April 2021: