Josh MacPhee

Josh MacPhee is a Brooklyn-based street artist, designer, curator, and activist. A street stenciler and poster-maker for over a decade, he also runs a radical art distribution project, justseeds.org, as a way to develop and distribute T-shirts, posters, and stickers with revolutionary content. He organizes the Celebrate People’s History Poster Project, an ongoing poster series in which different artists create posters to document and remember moments in radical history.

• Book events
• Reviews
• More from Josh

Praise

“I can’t think of any other design or visual arts publication quite like Signal in form and content. It is halfway between a magazine and a book in appearance and tone. Its dinky size, combined with astutely pitched, matte-laminated cover designs, make it immediately intriguing and attractive.”
—Rick Poynor, Design Observer

“Dunn and MacPhee do an impressive job of conveying not only what is new and relevant in political art, but also its history and its presence in the everyday.”
—Political Media Review

“The affordable pocketbook format perfectly complements the subject. Editors Dunn and MacPhee make the most of that layout: the reproductions of posters, flyers, murals, and magazine and book covers are clean and clear, with attractive spreads and color reproductions. Verdict: Offering these graphics to generations far beyond their original audiences, this title is recommended for designers, activists, archivists, and scholars studying protest movements.”
—Michael Dashkin, Library Journal

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Praise

“Offering these graphics to generations far beyond their original audiences, this title is recommended for designers, activists, archivists, and scholars studying protest movements.”
—Library Journal

“Signal reads like a magazine in that it consists of a number of smaller, independent articles but the loose continuity of subject holds it together as a book. As a series, this is going to be a great resource. Dunn and MacPhee are filling a void in terms of political graphics; there’s a lot of material for them to cover and this is solid start.”
—Printeresting.org

“Signal is dotted with stunning photography that will certainly reel in many people who are into unusual art. Clocking in at just under 140 glossy pages, Dunn and MacPhee do an impressive job of conveying not only what is new and relevant in political art, but also its history and its presence in the everyday.”
—Political Media Review

“If you are interested in the use of graphic art and communication in political struggles, don’t miss the latest issue of Signal.”
—Rick Poynor, Design Observer

“Signal couldn’t have arrived at a better time to reassure those of us using visual culture to enter a political discourse. ”
—Last Hours

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Praise

“Advertising Shits in Your Head provides a history of the practice (going back to the early ‘70s), alarming research and theory on the effects of the industry, advice about how to take part (including legal information) as well as several stunning case studies. This is essential reading for all who want to fight back against the ‘most powerful and sustained system of propaganda in human history.’“
—Jamie Kelsey-Fry, New Internationalist

“Advertising Shits in Your Head concisely describes, through unique firsthand accounts, the range of concerns addressed by today’s subvertising community. From a right to the city argument, to the belief that advertising is the biggest obstacle to avoiding catastrophic climate change, the book envisions a movement looking far beyond culture jamming and corporate identity sabotage.”
—Jordan Seiler, Public Ad Campaign

“Advertising Shits in Your Head gives form and context to culture-jamming practices in the twenty-first century. Providing important theoretical and historical context that unites the twin strands of activism—creativity and resistance—it shows how creative minds are getting together in the age of digital networks to hack space and place, and challenge the presence of capitalist values within our public, private, and cultural spaces. Advertisers most definitely shit in your head: this book is here to stop them.”
—Bill Posters, Brandalism

“Advertising is a gigantic machine for creating human misery. It’s a sustained psychological assault on the population and it is hard to overstate the brutal and permanent damage it does to us as individuals, to society, and to the planet itself. This book is a manual on how to begin the process of dismantling the machinery of advertising: how to interrupt it, sabotage it, and one day, maybe, destroy it entirely.”
—Darren Cullen, Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives

“Once advertising has shit in your head, you’re going to need something to clean it up with; I couldn’t recommend this book more highly.”
—Dr. D, London-based subvertiser and scoundrel

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Signal 01 includes:

• The Future of Xicana Printmaking: Alec Dunn and Josh MacPhee interview the Taller Tupac Amaru
• The Adventures of Red Rat: Alec Dunn interviews Johannes van de Weert
• Hard Travelin’: A photo essay with IMPEACH
• Early 20th-Century Anarchist Imprints
• Mexico 68: The Graphic Production of a Movement: Santiago Armengod interviews Felipe Hernandez Moreno
• Adventure Playgrounds: A photo essay
• Designing Anarchy: Dan Poyner interviews Rufus Segar

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Signal 02 includes:

• Design, Mass-Production, and Social Movements: An Interview with Sandy K. of image-shift
• Anarchist Posters in Japan
• Breaking Chains: Political Graphics and the Anti-Apartheid Struggle
• Selling Freedom: Promotional Posters from the 1910s
• Street Art, Oaxacan Struggle, and the Mexican Context
• Covering the Wall: Revolutionary Murals in 1970s Portugal
• Røde Mor -Danish printmaking, pop music, and politics

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Signal 03 includes:

• Sonic Internationalism: An Interview with Paredon Records Founder Barbara Dane
• Game of Destruction: Deltor Stencils the Enemies of Socialism by Stephen Goddard
• Organized Artists/Reproductive Resistance: Reflecting on the Medu Arts Ensemble
• Quebec Spring: Striking Culture by David Widgington
• Memories of Revolution: Yugoslav Partisan Memorials by Robert Burghardt and Gal Kirn

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Signal 04 includes:

• Imaging Palestine: Rochelle Davis and Emma Murphy take a look at Palestinian Affairs, one of the PLO’s major publications
• Fighting Fire with Water: Lincoln Cushing discusses the Bay Area Peace Navy’s large-scale visual interventions
• The Walls Speak Even If the Media Is Silent: Tennessee Watson documents a project made in response to the violence in Juárez
• Revolutionary Continuum: Jared Davidson cracks open New Zealand’s Kotare Trust Poster Archive
• Kommune 1: Michael McCanne teases out the early years of West Germany’s militant counterculture
• Illustrating the 3rd World: Josh MacPhee interviews Max Karl Winkler, book cover designer for Three Continents Press
• Dynamic Collectivity: Ryan Hayes traces the history of Toronto’s Punchclock Printing Collective

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Signal 05 includes:

• The Club de Grabado de Montevideo: Georgia Phillips-Amos unearths printmaking under dictatorship
• Three Print Collectives: Alec Dunn interviews Friends of Ibn Firnas, A3BC, and the Pangrok Sulap collective
• Survival by Sharing—Printing over Profit: Josh MacPhee interviews Paul Werner about the history of New York City’s Come!Unity Press
• The Pyramid’s Reign: Analyzing an enduring symbol of capitalism with Eric Triantafillou
• Empty Forms—Occupied Homes: Marc Herbst looks at the intersection between movement design and the struggle for housing in Barcelona
• Discs of the Gun: A trip through music and militancy in postwar Italy by Josh MacPhee

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Praise

“Offering these graphics to generations far beyond their original audiences, this title is recommended for designers, activists, archivists, and scholars studying protest movements.”
—Library Journal

“If you are interested in the use of graphic art and communication in political struggles, don’t miss the latest issue of Signal.”
—Rick Poynor, Design Observer

“As a series, this is a great resource. Dunn and MacPhee are filling a void.”
—Printeresting.org

Signal 06 includes:

• Basement Workshop: The Genesis of New York’s Asian American Resistance Culture
• Jamaa Al-Yad: An Interview with Daniel Drennan ElAwar
• La Escuela de Cultura Popular Revolucionaria Mártires del 68: Thirty Years of Collective Agitation in Mexico City
• The Appalachian Movement Press
• Adhesing Uprisings, and much more.

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Praise

“Writing-speaking differently is part of the struggle for the world we want to create and are creating, a world that moves against-and-beyond capitalism. These picture-essay-poems break the existing world both in what they say and how they say it. A fabulous book”.
—John Holloway, author of Crack Capitalism

“Paths toward Utopia combines beautiful art, crafted insights, and exemplary stories to plant inspiring seeds of a better future. What more could one ask for?”
—Michael Albert, author of Parecon: Life after Capitalism

“This remarkable book is inspiring and emboldening, allowing us to see the contours of another world that is not only possible but already in formation.”
—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960–1975

“Paths toward Utopia winds us through the political beliefs we know in our hearts, but sometimes lose sight of. It grounds us, embodies us, makes us feel wonder and see the beauty of the work we are doing.”
—Cindy Crabb, author of Doris zine

“This fine collection of graphic essays indicts a contemporary failure of imagination, and restores utopian politics that does not surrender to the drumbeat of everyday emergencies, tasks, and defeats.”
—Andrej Grubacic, author of Wobblies and Zapatistas

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Praise

“Let’s face it, most collections of activist art suck. Either esthetic concerns are front and center and the politics that motivate such creation are pushed to the margin, or politics prevail and artistic quality is an afterthought. With the heart of an activist and the eye of an artist, Josh MacPhee miraculously manages to do justice to both. Paper Politics is singularly impressive.”  —Stephen Duncombe, author of Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy

“For all of those who claim that poster art is dead in the age of YouTube and Blogs, Paper Politics will wheatpaste another message over your computer monitor. This exhibition and book is a testament to the vibrant trajectory of printmaking in the service of social change, including examples of earlier movements and artists as well as the graphics popping up right now. Obscure and familiar subjects are presented with wit, joy, and searing satire, guaranteed to snap your senses and challenge your opinions. It took a village to make this show, and the world will benefit from seeing it.” —Lincoln Cushing, author of Revolucion! Cuban Poster Art

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Book Events

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Reviews

• Signal:  02 A Journal of International Political Graphics & Culture
• Book Review: Signal:08 A Journal of International Political Graphics & Culture
• The Daily Heller: Integrating Message and Method
• Sketching Anarchy: An Interview with Erik Ruin
• Paths toward Utopia: A Peace News Review
• Cindy Milstein and Erik Ruin Present Paths toward Utopia at the Baltimore Radical Bookfair Pavilion
• How To Make Trouble and Influence People: Recommended Summer Reading
• How To Make Trouble and Influence People: A Review
• How Mischief-Makers Built Australia Through Pranks and Protests
• Illustrations From the Inside and The Real Cost of Prisons
• More on Paper Politics
• Signal: 03 A Review on Dubdog
• Signal 01: A Review in Last Hours
• Paper Politics in MRR
• Printmaking as Resistance?
• Signal 01: A Review in PMR
• Signal 01: A Review
• Printeresting Spotlights Signal 01
• Signal 01: A Review
• Sending Signals about Political Graphics
• Signal:04 in Library Journal

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Interviews

• Revolutionary Arts with Signal Journal + Abolition with Mwalimu Shakur
• Why do we wait? On the revolutionary potential of death and grief.— Cindy Milstein on This is Hell
• Cindy Milstein on Collective Care, Grief, and How To Do Mutual Aid During A Pandemic— Mutual Aid on Lockdown
• Anarchy & the Rise of Mutual Aid with Cindy Milstein on the Unbroken Chain Podcast
• Cindy Milstein’s Paths toward Utopia on the Black Agenda Report
• Cindy Milstein and Erik Ruin Present Paths toward Utopia at the Baltimore Radical Bookfair Pavilion
• Iain McIntyre, How to Make Trouble and Influence People: A Hometime Interview
• Political designs for our times— Signal in Red Pepper Magazine
• Paper Politics on ZNet

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Mentions

• It’s Right to Rebel

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Blog

• It’s Right to Rebel
• Signal 07: Round-up
• Why do we wait? On the revolutionary potential of death and grief.— Cindy Milstein on This is Hell
• Cindy Milstein on Collective Care, Grief, and How To Do Mutual Aid During A Pandemic— Mutual Aid on Lockdown
• Anarchy & the Rise of Mutual Aid with Cindy Milstein on the Unbroken Chain Podcast
• Cindy Milstein’s Paths toward Utopia on the Black Agenda Report
• Signal 01 is out!
• Signal 02: Editor’s Round Up
• Signal:03 Editor’s Round Up
• Signal:04 Editor’s Round Up
• Signal:06 Editors’ Round-Up
• 268: Democracy vs. Communism