Culture Clubs: Posters from the Megalo archives reflect an age of innocence

The Megalo screenprint collective was established in 1980 and was based at Ainslie Village. It later migrated to Hackett Primary, then Watson, by which time it had absorbed Studio One, and in 2013 came to Kingston where it is presently located.

This exhibition, drawn from the Megalo archives, celebrates the organisation's glory days as a screenprint poster collective mainly from the 1980s and 1990s. The art is raw, socially and politically committed and vibrant. The Megalo artists and their clients were not afraid to offend, strongly held beliefs were regarded as a badge of honour, and political correctness was in its infancy and was still a force for good. Many of the posters on display, for older Canberrans, may represent a trip down memory lane and look curious within the white cube of the gallery when we remember them on city walls, dormitory squats and smoke-filled cafes; nevertheless, on closer examination they have lost none of their punch.

There is a certain disconnect between the catalogue produced for this exhibition and the posters on display. Many of the posters, when they were made, appeared as unattributed - the idea was that there was strength within the anonymity of the poster collective. In the catalogue they appear with their correct attribution to individual creators. Although, thankfully, the posters in the gallery are unframed and unglazed and some are presented as a "salon hang" as a solid wall of posters, there is an inevitable sanitising process in the migration of a poster from its temporary abode in a public space to its curatorial presentation on a gallery wall.

The Megalo poster collective in the 1980s and 1990s was famous for making dirt-cheap posters for worthy causes, which at that time included the Bitumen River Gallery, 2XX student radio station housed at the ANU Drill Hall, Palestinian Human Rights Campaign, ANU Communist Student Collective, Gorman House Arts Centre and numerous other theatre, arts and welfare organisations. In many instances, the political convictions of the commissioning bodies coincided with those of the Megalo artists. Megalo positioned itself left of centre, it was committed to fighting for the rights of oppressed peoples in Australia and abroad and it was the curse for conservative politicians locally and around the globe.

A roll call of some of the artists involved with Megalo in this exhibition is also quite impressive. They include Julia Church, eX de Medici, Alison Alder, Mark Arbuz, Toni Robertson, Gaynor Cardew, Franki Sparke, Paul Costigan, Tony Ayres and Annie Franklin. Many have gone on to have stellar careers as artists, others from their screenprinting careers developed crippling health conditions from handling heavy inks and turps in poorly ventilated facilities.

It may be naive to say this but, for me, these Megalo posters from the 1980s and 1990s reflect an age of innocence where the idea prevailed that art could communicate information and that social action could influence major changes such as an end to apartheid, land rights for First Nations Peoples, civil rights for Palestinians and gender rights and the end to discrimination for LGBTQ+ people.

I suspect that an exhibition of contemporary posters would present a very different field of vision. Whereas the colour screenprints on display are relatively low-tech with mainly hand-cut stencils and simple vibrant colours, today most posters would be digital, the transitions seamless, and the surfaces beautifully machine printed. Somehow the rawness of these early posters carries within them a sense of conviction - it is a heartfelt art that is often accompanied with a clenched-fist salute.