This exhibition includes street posters of protest from the events of May 1968, Paris and the political movements in Berkeley (Oakland in the late 1960s), loaned from Special Collections, University of British Columbia, Main Library, Vancouver, BC, and the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, Los Angeles, CA.

The 1960s represents a dramatic and irreversible prying open of American culture, when traditional, established models disintegrated due to intense political and cultural pressures such as the escalation of the Cold War and the conflicts in Vietnam. The use of posters was a significant strategy of discourse and expression by the youth population of the 1960s in both Europe and North America. As historical documents, political graphics provide access to a variety of dissenting opinions, and ultimately, make way for a clearer understanding of this tumultuous decade.

As a means of contextualizing some of the major social and political tensions of this time, a conference, “Plop Goes the World: A Critical Reassessment of the 1960s” has been organized by the UBC Fine Arts Department and will consider the unraveling of the Western canon, the subsequent emergence of a multi-voiced society and the battles over representation that have resulted.