OSPAAAL: Solidarity and Design

Between 1966-2019 it commissioned artists and graphic designers to produce striking posters that were published along with the magazine ‘Tricontinental’. The exhibition of a selection of these posters, 'OSPAAAL: Solidarity and Design' opened at the V&A in South Kensington coinciding with the London Design Festival 2022 and was subsequently shown at the V&A Dundee in 2023. The early concept sketches explore a dramatic ‘GALLERY WITHIN A GALLERY', the display is designed to contest the imperial architecture of the museum by playing with exaggerated perspective and cutting the space with posters that physically ‘POP-OUT’ from bright blue angular walls. The OSPAAAL posters had to co-exist with the museum’s existing collection of contemporary flags, as well as being considerate of sightlines to the sculpture galleries below, and the members' room above. Rationalised panel sizes and simple details allow for low-cost fabrication and just a 4-day installation period. MDF boards were reused from a previous display held at the V&A – with only some minor dimensional adjustments to facilitate this. Elsewhere, compatible light fittings were retrieved from deep in the museum stores, and some separate minor repair works to the gallery were consolidated into a single budget. Graphic elements were screenprinted in a special typeface that referenced the techniques and style of the original artworks. The exhibition display is designed to be easily demountable and transportable - it was relocated to V&A Dundee after an initial 6-month run in London. The, now twice re-used, display walls have been reconfigured to suit the different space of the ground floor foyer of Kengo Kuma's museum with only minor tweaks to the physical structures, a bespoke new bench was also designed to make use of additional recycled materials.