Dónde están nuestros hijos (“Where are our children?”). Chilean Arpilleras wall hanging, Roberta Bacic collection. Photo: Martin Melaugh Bike blocs’ are another contemporary feature of protests, with discarded bikes welded together into ‘machines of creative resistance’. A pair of bikes placed in parallel with a platform between them can house a PA and sound-system, which can be an important element in a protest for amplifying voices and offering music to accompany or co-ordinate protestors’ chants. Multiple modes of resistance also reflect a multitude of intersecting struggles, a theme which the exhibition highlights with a quote from Audre Lorde, the great American poet, feminist and activist: “There is no such thing as a single issue struggle because we do not lead single issue lives; our struggles are particular, but we are not alone.”

The Zapatista Dolls are of a similar size and weight so I decided to use a similar and minimal approach when mounting these, especially as they could just be supported underneath their arms to hold them in place when on display. Early stages of cutting the rod and shaping it so the dolls sit at the desired angle. But some of the most powerful exhibits are the simplest ones – things that engage with the more theatrical side of a demonstration and show how the balance of power on the street can be swung with just a bit of mischievous wit. In one corner, a cluster of gigantic inflatable cubes hangs above a line of placards, like metallic clouds. These are inflatable cobblestones, made by the Eclectic Electric Collective, and used in worker protests in Berlin and Barcelona in 2012, as a way to outwit the authorities.Often, the most simple of ideas prove to be the most effective, so I’ll talk through the process of making a mount for one of the Bust cards featured in the exhibition. Craft skills such as sewing will be represented by items including hand-stitched textiles from Chile that document political violence and a banner created for the Unite union in the UK.

Made by the Treatment Rooms Collective: Luke Allen, Gary Drostle, Mark Drostle, Eoghan Ebrill, Linda Griffiths, Gabrielle Harvey-Smith, Liam Heyhow, Peter Henham, Kevin O’Donohue, Carrie Reichardt, Thayen Rich, Sian Wonnish Smith, Cerdic Thomas, Liam Thomas, Karen Wydler, Mark Wydler The Guerrilla Girls became an all-female force in the art world in the mid-1980’s. They have devoted nearly thirty years to feminist and anti-racist concerns. The V&A is fortunate to have one of their early works on display as part of the exhibition Disobedient Objects: ‘Do Women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum? Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female.’ The Guerrilla Girls display within the V&A exhibition Disobedient Objects, 2014 Grindon, who is an academic specialising in the history of activist art and current research fellow at the V&A, participated in activist movements and organised workshops with protesters to find out which objects would be most suitable for the exhibition. Banner for UNITE the union at the march in support of the NHS in Manchester. Photography by Ed Hall Painted banners and placards featuring humorous or evocative slogans have also been selected. Chilean Arpilleras wall hanging: Dónde están nuestros hijos, Chile Roberta Bacic's collection. Photograph by Martin Melaugh Quotations inserted between the steps represent the voices of activists and political thinkers, from 19th-century anarchist Emma Goldman to an anonymous slogan on a 1970s badge. On either side of the entrance, two ‘ceramic posters’ collage images of protest in Britain, past and present. They intentionally cover over an inscription commemorating the inauguration of the building by the ‘Empress and Emperor of India’ (Victoria and Albert). The contemporary scenes are autobiographical, and represent actions that Reichardt, her friends and family were involved in.There are accounts of women saying that it was only when they had their eyes down on their sewing that they felt safety in confronting what was going on and were able to document what they were otherwise proscribed against speaking about. Reichardt describes herself as an ‘extreme craftivist and renegade potter’. The intervention was made over a short, intense period and mobilised the skills of a collective of mosaic artists.

These textiles often left the country, and were seen as innocent by the authorities because of their resemblance to folk art, but carried letters and communicated with the outside world. This technique spread, and we have examples from Colombia in 2010. It was also used in Ireland by women protesting against the use of Shannon Airport in extraordinary rendition. We start in the 70s and the rise of neo-liberalism; among the earliest objects in the show are Chilean appliqued textiles produced by women in workshops during the Pinochet regime. These documented the social realities of the disappearances, the tortures, the economic hardships. These worked on a number of levels. Sadly, this is my final post on the museum blog for Disobedient Objects…but before I move on to new adventures, I’d like to give you a little glimpse into more of the behind-the-scenes work involved in the run up to Disobedient Objects. I am going to focus a little bit into two very simple mounts I made prior to the show’s opening last month.

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Coral Stoakes, I wish my boyfriend was as dirty as your policies. Image courtesy of the V&A Museum. Main image:Inflatable cobblestone, action of Eclectic Electric Collective during the General Strike in Barcelona. Image courtesy of Oriana Eliçabe/Enmedio.info After this photograph was taken, each mount was then taken off to be lacquered and left to dry for 24 hours. I then threaded shrinkable tubing onto the wire and moulded these evenly into place using a heat gun, which was done to avoid any metal snagging against the fabric of the doll. Testing out the mount in the museum workshop. It would be good to know more about what worked and how well. Some of the movements represented were spectacularly successful, such as the suffragettes, gay rights, Solidarnosc and the anti-apartheid campaigns, whereas protests against what is now called neoliberalism, their themes remarkably consistent over the decades, don't seem to have got very far. You wonder to what degree design played a role in both successes and failures. There is, finally, an unintended consequence of the proximity of artistic and political radicalism – it's possible to blur one with the other and be too easily satisfied with something that looks as if it is changing the world, when it's not.