Exhibition and Book Proposal
Catherine Tedford
Publicly placed stickers with printed images and/or text have been used for decades as a form of political protest or to advocate political agendas. In the United States, for example, as early as the 1910s, labor unions such as the Industrial Workers of the World created the first “stickerettes” or “silent agitators” to oppose poor working conditions, intimidate bosses, and condemn capitalism.
Later, during World War II, Allied and Axis countries dropped gummed “paper bullets” or “confetti soldiers” from the sky as a form of psychological warfare to demoralize both troops and civilians. During the 1960s and ’70s American civil rights era, paper “night raiders” protested the war in Vietnam and U.S. imperialism, calling for racial and gender equity among blacks, whites, men, and women. Colorful, lightweight German spuckies have also been used for several decades to combat fascism and sexism and to comment on environmental issues.
Drawing from the private collection of Catherine Tedford, the exhibition and publication will feature thousands of original, unused political stickers from Canada, Egypt, England, Germany, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Spain, Ukraine, the United States, and other countries, dating from the early 20th century to present day. Both are organized by subject, including gender and sexuality, labor and workers’ rights, racism, surveillance, war and conflict, the environment, and police reform. Stickers are also grouped by geographic location and date.
Catherine Tedford, gallery director at St. Lawrence University (Canton, NY, USA), first discovered street stickers while visiting Berlin in 2003 and has since collected over 15,000 original, unused examples from countries around the world. A two-time recipient of a DAAD German Academic Exchange Service grant, she has traveled to Berlin over 20 times to study street stickers. She writes about political stickers on her research blog Stickerkitty and has presented papers at academic conferences in Canada, England, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, and the United States.
In 2014 and 2015, two initial Paper Bullets exhibitions were presented at Hatch Kingdom Sticker Museum, Berlin, Germany. Variations of the initial Paper Bullets exhibitions were also featured in the United States at Susquehanna University (PA) in 2015, St. Lawrence University (NY) in 2017, and Central Washington University (WA) in 2018. The most comprehensive exhibition of Paper Bullets was presented at Neurotitan Gallery in Berlin, Germany, in 2019. (See review in Berliner Zeitung.)
Stickers have been published in a Street Art Graphics digital archive available to the public, free of charge, in Jstor. The archive now numbers over 4,300 items, thanks to an initial multi-year start-up grant from the U.S. Council of Independent Colleges (2015-2018) and a subsequent collection development grant to catalogue stickers by female artists (2018-2019).
Writing Samples
- Introduction: Takin’ It to the Streets & Stickin’ It to the Man
- Industrial Workers of the World “stickerettes” or “silent agitators” and timeline (USA, 1910s-present)
- “Paper Bullets,” propaganda stickers from WWI, WWII, and Desert Storm (multiple countries, 1910s-1990s)
- Featured artists/activists: Avram Finkelstein and AIDS graphics and Slavers of New York (USA, 1980s-present)
- Football Club St. Pauli “the pirates of the league” (Germany, 2000s-present)
- COVID-19 conspiracy and misinformation stickers (USA, 2020s-present)
Published Essays and Journal Articles
- “Street Art Stickers as Subversive Visual Discourse.” Unframing the Visual: Visual Literacy Pedagogy in Academic Libraries and Information Spaces, edited by Maggie Murphy, Stephanie Beene, Katie Greer, Sara Schumacher, and Dana Statton Thompson, Association of College and Research Libraries Press, 2023 (forthcoming). Print.
- “Catherine Tedford on Political Stickers from WWI to the Age of COVID.” Weave News, Interweave #29, August 4, 2022. Podcast.
- “Catherine Tedford.” The Social Movement Archive, edited by Jen Hoyer and Nora Almeida, Litwin Books, 2021, 149-158. Print.
- “Silent Agitators: Sociopolitical Stickers from the Industrial Workers of the World” and “FC St. Pauli” in Stickers, Volume 2: From Punk Rock to Contemporary Art (a.k.a. More Stuck-Up Crap, edited by DB Burkeman, Rizzoli, 2019, 236-239. Print.
- “Silent Agitators: Early Stickerettes from the Industrial Workers of the World.” Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics & Culture. Volume 6 (February 2018). PM Press. Print.
- Sticky art: the Street Art Graphics collection. The Artstor Blog. January 4, 2017. Web.
Additional Contributors (to date)
- [Title TBD] stickers from Scotland, Hannah Awcock (Scotland)
- [Title TBD] stickers from Mexico, Tzintzun Aguilar-Izzo (USA/Mexico), environmental artist/activist, Talking Wings
- “What Men Fear Most: the Stickers of Sister Serpents Radical Feminist Art Collective,” Jen Hoyer (USA), librarian and archivist, Interference Archive, Brooklyn, NY, and CUNY New York City College of Technology
- “Women’s Issues: Memory and Violence Stickers/Pegatinas from Spain,” Marina Llorente (Spain/USA), St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY. Co-editor of Sites of Memory in Spain and Latin America: Trauma, Politics, and Resistance (2015) and Activism Through Poetry: Critical Spanish Poems in Translation (2017); co-author with John Collins and Paloma Elvira of “Victims” in Globalizing Collateral Language (2021).
- [Title TBD] auto-collantes from Portugal, Josh MacPhee (USA), Interference Archive, Brooklyn, NY, and co-editor of Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics & Culture
- [Title TBD] BLM/protest stickers from the United States, Heather Shirey and Todd Lawrence (USA), University of St. Thomas, Saint Paul, MN, and founders of the George Floyd & Anti-Racist Street Art Archive
Examples (USA)
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- Industrial Workers of the World “stickerettes” or “silent agitators,” 1910s-present
- War in Vietnam, 1960s-1970s
- President Richard M. Nixon, 1960s-1970s
- Black Lives Matter/Prison Reform, 1970s-present
- LGBTQI, 1980s-1990s
- AIDS epidemic, 1980s-1990s
- President George W. Bush, 2000s
- Nature and the environment, 2000s-present
- Gender & sexuality, 2000s-present
Examples (Germany), all dated 2000s-present except spuckies
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- Spuckies, 1980s-present
- Nature and the environment
- Capitalism/economy(ies)
- Reclaim the streets, urban re-development, gentrification, squats
- Anti-sexism, -homophobia, -transphobia
- Surveillance/technology
- Anti-nationalism
- Football Club St. Pauli
- Die Linke (political party)
- Linksjugend [solid’] (political youth organization)
- Inforiot – alternative politics and culture
- Pop culture and culture jamming
- Memes
Examples (Spain)
- Women’s rights, gender, and sexuality, 2010s-present
- Catalan independence movement, 1970s-present
- Economy and austerity cuts, 2010s-present
- Resistance to joining NATO, early 1980s
- Anti-fascism, 2000s-present
- Nature, environment, animal rights, 2010s-present
Examples (Canada)
- Indigenous rights, 2010s-present
- Police brutality, 2010s-present
Examples (Mexico)
- Human dignity, social justice (2010s-present)
Examples (Egypt)
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- Arab Spring, 2010-2011
Examples (Russia)
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- Civil protests, 2012
Examples (Ukraine)
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- Euromaidan protests, 2013-2014
Born-digital photographs of stickers in situ from NYC, Berlin, Montreal, Poznan, and other cities can be added to both the exhibition and publication. Additional information about other traveling sticker exhibitions can be found here.