Dark Mode

About Days of Rage

Days of Rage is a web exhibition that enlivens historical activist posters from ONE Archives at the USC Libraries through tactile analysis and storytelling. Grounded in the experiences of activists and graphic designers Alan Bell, Daniel Hyo Kim, Chandi Moore, Silas Munro, Judy Ornelas Sisneros, and Jordan Peimer, the exhibition positions LGBTQ+ graphic design as embodied in community realities and histories, producing subjective reflections on the interdependence of design and activism. In assembling the exhibition, these community experts chose five posters from the recently digitized poster collection at ONE Archives at the USC Libraries. Over a sequence of stylized videos that emphasize the choreography of their hands, the invited experts reflect on their selections, allowing the posters to guide ruminations on design language, community responsiveness, erasure and history, and the affiliative force of activist politics. Their hands, voices, and memories serve as interpretive guides in transmitting knowledge, thereby queering the mode in which graphic design is displayed–which is so often static and wall-bound. From bold graphic declarations of community activation to explicit safer sex health campaigns, the posters discussed run the affective gamut, bringing up powerful feelings of rage, joy, and sorrow. Days of Rage privileges this associative and sometimes aleatory interpretation of design, and finds profound value in its capacity to serve as a roiling, continuous link to a shared sense of LGBTQ+ ancestry and struggle.

The exhibition is curated by Andy Campbell, Associate Professor Critical Studies at the Roski School of Design, University of Southern California (USC), and co-curated by Tracy Fenix and Austen Villacis, current students in Roski’s Curatorial Practices and the Public Sphere graduate program.

This project is organized by One Institute, made possible by a grant from Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture. The digitization of over 4200 posters in ONE’s collections was made possible by a grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources’ Digitizing Hidden Collections program.

About One Institute

Founded in 1952, One Institute is the oldest active LGBTQ organization in the United States, and is dedicated to telling the accurate stories and history of all LGBTQ people and their culture. As an independent nonprofit, One Institute promotes ONE Archives at the USC Libraries — the largest repository of LGBTQ materials in the world — and provides innovative educational initiatives, public exhibitions, and community programs. The curatorial and educational choices made by One Institute are guided by our commitment to social equity and justice. We engage with the complexity of LGBTQ history and representation through highlighting the intersectional and authentic narratives of Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC), women, gender-nonconforming and transgender people, people of various abilities, youth, and elders across all socio-economic classes.

www.oneinstitute.org

About Protest Sign Font

The Protest Sign Font utilized on the Days of Rage exhibition website is created by GenderFail. GenderFail is a publishing, programing and archiving platform run solely by Be Oakley. The font is licensed for noncommercial usage.

genderfailpress.com/protest-fonts.html

Our sponsors

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Contact

For inquiries about the exhibit, contact Umi Hsu, Director of Content Strategy at One Institute.

This is about how design lives through us: our bodies, our memories, our activated minds.

Activist mode

Use a Latex Condom Every Time: We’re All At Risk For HIV/AIDS

Valerie Papaya Mann and Earnest Hite, photo by Hopeton Stewart / AIDS Project of the East Bay
c. 1990

It Can’t Happen To Me… NOT!

Robert Birch
1992

Gay is Angry

Juan Carlos y Néstor (Juan Carlos Vidal and Néstor Latrónico)
1971

Police Raids: Gays to Win

Unknown
1983

You Can Do It All – Just Do It Safer

Blue Brick/NYC
1990

AIDS in LA, 1983-1989

Brian Mladenich
1990

Use a Latex Condom Every Time

Valerie Papaya Mann and Earnest Hite, published by AIDS Project of the East Bay, photography by Hopeton Stewart
c. 1990

Safe Sex Is Hot Sex

Red Hot / Steven Meisel
1991-1992

Color Coded

Gay Men of Color Consortium and the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies
1995

Memorial Protest Posters

ACT-UP Los Angeles
c. 1991

Stonewall

Unknown
1976

Stop Anti-Gay/Lesbian Violence

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
c. 1982

Have Sex – Go to Jail

ACT UP/LA
1991

I’ll Always Love My Mama

Unknown
1973

Murder – You’re Gonna Love It!

JMW
1984

Florida Orange Juice is Hazardous to Your Existence

Frank T. Vetgen / West American Advertising.
1977

Don’t Just Question Authority – Fuck It!

agfay
c. 1990-3

Homos Get Off Your Arses and Fight Back Now: This is Your Life

Homocult
1990

Women are Dying for AIDS Treatment

Critical Mass
1990

AIDSPHOBIA: Protect Yourself from Hollywood

Jordan Peimer and Joshua Wells
1991

Guilty of Crimes Against the Queer Nation

Queer Nation
1991

Show Your Outrage!

Unknown
1991

Calling All Queers!

Kate Sorensen
1991

Holy Homophobia!

Robbie Conal
1990

Highways Posters

Various
1992-3

Health Care Not Death Care

Critical Mass
1990

Have Sex – Go to Jail

ACT UP/LA
1991

A Day Without Art

M plus M Incorporated
1989