By: Sia Garg, SFU Student
Whether in class or amongst my peers, when we look back at the history of resistance, we often treat political art as something distant and monumental: think of Michelangelo’s “David” serving as a symbol against Medici patronage in Renaissance Italy, or the crop up of sprawling public artwork throughout the French Revolution. However, in the 21st century, the reality of protest is rarely so well-defined. Instead, it is lived in, a phenomenon that is beautifully messy, loud, and permanently stained with printer ink.
Curated by Joshua Segun-Lean, a writer, researcher, and SFU MA graduate in contemporary arts, Strategies of Assembly: Revel & Revolt in British Columbia, is a compelling exhibition currently on display at SFU’s Gibson Art Museum. This exhibition maps 40 years of BC’s radical pulse by comparing two distinctive historical archives. The first is an expansive collection of street posters preserved by Perry Giguere, affectionately known as “Perry the Poster Man.” The second is a series of black-and-white documentary photographs captured for the Pacific Tribune, Vancouver’s historic weekly labour newspaper that ceased its publication in 1992. These collections serve to showcase that when we examine modern activism, particularly the history of resistance and protest here in BC, the traditional boundaries between objective journalism and creative art completely dissolves.
Conventionally, people tend to recognize that a newspaper photograph is meant to be perceived as objective photojournalism, while a protest poster tends to be thought of as artistic expressions. However, when standing in the gallery, that distinction becomes harder to fall upon. Whether you are looking at a Pacific Tribune photograph or a staple-worn poster shouting for Indigenous solidarity, these pieces are executing the exact same cultural work. With bold typography, hand-drawn territorial maps and portraits, and stark coastlines, these posters helped to turn utility poles and community bulletin boards into public declarations of title and rights. They are taking up space for social expression, and are documenting history while simultaneously demanding an alternative future.
Regardless of how empowering it is, seeing these pieces is another demonstration: a history of public gathering is also fundamentally a history of exclusion. While it is important to reflect on the artistic nature of protests, we are faced with the sobering complication that the items on display are merely the survivors. For every radical poster that is carefully salvaged by a collector, countless others marginalized in BC were quietly shut down, policed, or left completely undocumented. In this way, the art that isn’t present speaks just as loudly as the print matter that is.
It is up to the individual to use arts as a form of social organization, and to insist that things must change for the better.
Being part of an assembly means weaponizing whatever tools are at your immediate disposal — be it a camera lens, a screen-print press, a sharpie, or a megaphone — and visiting community spaces of artistic protest like Strategies of Assembly; it is up to the individual to use arts as a form of social organization, and to insist that things must change for the better.
Strategies of Assembly will be on display at The Gibson until September 13, 2026.
