D I S S E M I N A T I O N 4.0
Dash N’ Dem were subsequently invited by the the South London Gallery, in May 2015, to facilitate 6 workshops with the Art Assassins, youth aged 14-21 years.
This project used Dash N’ Dem’s David Cameron role play to encourage participants to consider what the role of a Prime Minister means to them, and how young people can be directly involved in current affairs and decision-making for their futures.
https://www.southlondongallery.org/projects/for-the- people-by-the-people-copy/
M E T H O D S 1.0
Archive Research
The project started with Dash N’ Dem developing materials on the language and techniques of the political poster and how it has played a key role in how political parties ‘speak’ to the people throughout the 20th Century. This included research at the People’s History Museum and on-line data- bases such as the LSE Digital Library.
Research included campaign pageantry and the visual language and specific conceptual structures of advertising – for instance, conceptual separability and using a symbols to frame ‘the big idea'.
The researchers visited the ad agency McGarryBowen, to expand their understanding of the field and providing the artists with ideas of how they would approach the first part of the community engagement process.
Following multiple visits to illustrators, the artists eventually selected political cartoonist Patrick Blower – known for his work with the Daily Telegraph, Evening Standard and The Guardian – for his work subverting established symbolism.
C O N T E X T
Fomenting long-term research on the language and techniques of the political poster, for this project, the artists drew on a range of practices that ‘détourne’ media messages inspired by and including the Situationists. Contemporary activists who transform public space through grass roots collaboration include projects like ‘For Walls with tongues’ – a Docklands Community Poster Project 2017-18, by Peter Dunn and Dr. Lorraine Leeson’s. A difference in this project was the use of precision advertising language to make messages accessible and have reach.
As the research progressed it became clear that the tradition of political cartoons provided a good counter-point to top-down advertising messaging, with its capacity to speak truth to power on behalf of organisations. It was felt that the terrorist attack on the offices of French satirical weekly magazine, Charlie Hebdo, on 7 January 2015, was still very much in the public consciousness – testimony to the affective potential of this language and bringing the issue of free speech to the fore.
The site-specificity of the project was crucial. Although billboards not the primary communication media in urban contexts or for electioneering anymore, this project capitalised on the topography of Bedford, with billboards providing key focal points at traffic interchanges.
R E S E A R C H Q U E S T I O N S
1. How do you enable community groups to voice what they want to say using the language and techniques of the political poster?
2. How can we reclaim co-creativity as an example of activism not optimisation (business, bring in users to generate ideas that are sold back to them) and, outside of this, how can a designer use this process in a community and bring the benefit back to them?
3. How do you bring people together from diverse groups and with different skillsets to create a shared learning experience that changes how communications projects are developed?
M E T H O D S 2.1
Co-creation Workshops
The researchers designed the second workshop stage so that all groups would be brought together – the first stage, managing 8 community groups, having proved very hard.
Workshop 2 - 14th February 2015 – At this stage, Dash N’ Dem activated the political research they had done using participatory methods and performance. This included gaming and role play: i.e. tea with David Cameron; a talent show; and contrast writing exercises (‘not x..’). Here, role play was a catalyst for bringing out real conversations - developing different ideas that would contribute to the end outcome so it really was the group talking back.
In one example, a woman from The Multi-Heritage Organisation had, in the first workshop, reported that her hijab had been pulled off the week before and, through the contrast writing exercise (‘not x..’), the phrase ‘I’m a mother not an extremist’ emerged which would be used on the final billboard.
Watch the David Cameron Role Play: https://dashndem.com/bedford-voices
I N S I G H T S 1.0
1. The process of co-creating community messages employing popular communications techniques generated real impact and debate in their communities and in the press. For instance: in the example of The Multi-Heritage Organisation’s slogan, ‘I’m a mother not an extremist’ – which came from a woman’s report that her hijab had pulled off the week before – the story attracted attention when amplified by the billboard and was picked up by local news.
Four of the community groups involved in the project have subsequently developed closer ties as a result of the project; Queens Park Community Orchard; Carers in Bedfordshire; Multi-Heritage Organisation and Bedford and District Cerebral Palsy Society.
2. Experimental collaborations across stakeholders set up new power relations, making a more horizontal process. For instance, Previous to this, cartoonist Patrick Blower had never worked with an advertising agency before and this also destabilised the ad agency usual roll-call of artists.
In the final stage, the project was structured as a more typical client relationship, but what worked for the communities was that they were listened by experts who were working for the groups not the artists in effect (destabilising relations again).
D I S S E M I N A T I O N 1.0
From 16 March–12 April 2015, 8 billboards with peoples’ political posters were exhibited across 10 sites in Bedford town.
The project had significant local impact, with audience reach estimated by Bedford Creative Arts at 1.232m.
Documentation was disseminated online through the Bedford Creative Arts website: http://bedfordcreativearts.org.uk/projects/bedford-voices/
The project received substantial attention on social media:
– Twitter, 69,536 Impressions
– Facebook, with highest reach 2,800
The project was also documented through the artist’s website: https://dashndem.com/bedford-voices
A 3-minute film of the project reached further audiences through YouTube and was linked to the Bedford Creative Arts and artist’s website: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=b3qIh9t8Q68
D I S S E M I N A T I O N 3.0
Bedford attracted media coverage in both local and national news and creative sector news forums such as Art Rabbit and Culture24.
National
• ’Bedford project delivers cartoon fantasy election pledges’, BBC online (Beds, Bucks and Herts), 16 March 2015: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england- beds-bucks-herts-31902794
• Bob Chaundy, ‘#BedfordVoices’, HuffPost (UK edition), 18 May 2015: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/bob-chaundy/bedfordvoices_b_6895276.html
Broadcast media
• BBC Look East, TV news feature
• BBC3 Counties, 3 Radio interviews
• BBC Asian Network, Radio interview
National special interest
• Asian Lite Magazine, feature print and online
Local
• Beds on Sunday, launch, feature and 3 stories on
Yarl’s Wood’s withdrawal from project.
• Times & Citizen, 2 features
• Bedford Clanger, feature
D I S S E M I N A T I O N 2.0
The launch of the billboards was accompanied by participatory events: a bus tour and walking tours, the first where people could view the various works with the artist and, the second, hustings with local MPs and councillors who gathered to discuss the issues raised by the billboards.
I N T R O D U C T I O N
Bedford Voices was as an exciting collaborative experiment in the run up to the 2015 UK General # Election. Dash N’ Dem were interested in the political poster and how it has played a key role in how political parties ‘speak’ to the people throughout the 20th century and now still, and how they could enable community groups to voice what they wanted to say using the language and techniques of the political poster.
The aim was to give a voice to some of the different communities in Bedford who may not always be heard. This commission created the opportunity to explore, discuss and co- produce people’s policies as an artwork for all to experience, posing powerful questions and thought-provoking messages that were intended to get people talking and engaging.
Dash N’ Dem initiated an open, collaborative process between political cartoonist Patrick Blower, advertising agency McGarryBowen and eight diverse community groups in Bedfordshire. Resulting in an alternative political campaign, billboard posters that went up around Bedford town centre for one month prior to the 2015 UK General election. These people’s political posters spoke back to those of the mainstream political parties, proclaiming the ideals of the community groups in the form of hard-hitting political cartoons.
• DND worked with eight community groups in a series of workshops to developing their own political message, drawing from advertising, the history of the political posters and campaign pageantry. Overall they worked with 185 participants at 16 closed workshops
• Political cartoonist Patrick Blower came on board to develop the message through hard-hitting images. The advertising agency McGarryBowen provided expertise on message framing and impact.
• From 16 March- 12 April 2015, these people’s political posters were exhibited across Bedford town centre at various locations. Audience Impact estimated by Bedford Creative Arts at 1.232m based on 160,000 people seeing it over 7 times.
• The public were invited on a walking tour and local MPs and councillors gathered for a hustings event to discuss the issues raised by the billboards.
• The project had significant impact for Bedford, getting coverage by BBC Look East, and the Huffington Post.
The groups involved included the Bedford and District Cerebral Palsy Society’s powerful image of someone with a neurological condition shouting to Westminster through a megaphone constructed from a rolled-up ballot paper “Talk to me not my mum!” Carers in Bedfordshire’s billboard depicted ‘Britain’s Forgotten Army’ with an illustration of a group of carers from all backgrounds marching. The Multi-Heritage Organisation showed a mother holding her child yet casting a shadow of a suicide bomber with the slogan ‘I’m a mother not an extremist.’ Other groups included TransBedford, whose image highlighted the ongoing lack of education on the issue of Transgender, plus Faith Community Church, Queens Park Community Orchard, The Shed Bedford, a men’s support group, and a community urban radio station In2Beats.
M E T H O D S 2.0
Co-creation Workshops
The brief encouraged the groups to imagine ideas of a Utopia based on issues important to them and Dash N’ Dem worked initially with 10 community groups in 4 workshops over two stages. [70 individual participants / 185 participants at 16 closed workshops].
Workshop 1 - 28th January 2015. The first co-creation session enabled participants to come to a core set of messages based on techniques Dash N’ Dem had extracted from the ad agency visit on “how a billboard works” and how you get to a core message – a more typical commercial process of method framing than in the second stage.
One example, through this workshop process, a young girl from the Bedford and District Cerebral Palsy Society felt able to open up and relate how she was fed up with everyone talking to her mum, not her. In later stages, this anti-patronising message would become the campaign ‘TALK TO ME NOT MY MUM’, where this personal message became re-directed to Westminster.
M E T H O D S 3.0
Bringing in cross-disciplinary expertise, The outcomes of the second stage of workshops were given to the ad agency McGarryBowen and, with Kevin Chesters, Executive Planning Director, working together with the cartoonist, they picked out the best material from each group.
Blower created the illustrations, using his method of subverting established symbolism, whilst fitting with standardised billboard advertising conventions (such as flat, bright colour). For instance: For the Bedford Carers’ slogan, ’Remembering Britain's forgotten army’, Blower extended the army metaphor with an illustration of a group of carers from all backgrounds marching. For the The Multi- Heritage Organisation’s billboard, ‘I’m a mother not an extremist’, his image of a mother holding her child, with a searchlight being shone in her face, casting a shadow of a suicide bomber, enabled him to highlight misconceptions of image.
To form the final stage, Dash N’ Dem went back to the communities with the posters that the cartoonist had developed from the best concepts for each group.
I N S I G H T S 1.1
3. The success of the process was often related to the size of the organisation as those with with many brands have higher levels of authority – and also whether the artists had already worked with the decisions makers in an organisation.
This included realising the restrictions on freedom of speech of different groups (i.e. Yarl’s Wood, where the women wanted to voice indefinite detention, and where the artists also had to deal with private service-provider Serco and, ultimately, the Home Office. Ultimately then Home Secretary Theresa May shut the Yarl’s Wood project down for being too political near the election and threatened the place with loosing funding. This story also attracted local news attention, with 3 stories in Beds on Sunday on Yarl’s Wood’s withdrawal from project.
4. Detailed participant feedback data was collected by Bedford Creative Arts. This data provided three key learnings from the end of project interviews with the individual groups: to allow more time for development of the final concept and group involvement/approval; for all the artists/creatives to be present at the sessions (cartoonist, ad agency); for the project intentions to be stated clearly from the outset (increased political focus proved problematic for some).
