All I’m really interested in at the moment is trying to say to people, ‘Look, one of the great problems of our time is that there seems to be no other alternative to the political ideas of our time.”
– Adam Curtis, British Filmmaker, Chris Darke, Interview: Adam Curtis, July 17, 2012
How do we make sense of our ocular regime, where a relentless flood of circulating images saturates our world, yet posters emerge as the material form of the ephemeral present and its memory? In this sea of visual excess, posters serve as tangible witnesses to the passing of time, archiving fleeting moments that might otherwise be lost to history. This essay delves into the work of Shaheen Merali, who, through his meticulous poster collection spanning decades, has built a formidable archive of cultural and political memory. I have been fortunate to witness his act of collecting firsthand, and this essay reflects on an exhibition he curated in Vienna, where he invited local Viennese artist Ramesch Daha to share her poster archives, along with documents from both public and personal collections. Like Merali, Daha’s work is rooted in extensive historical research, connecting biographical and historical threads, collective memories, and political events into new, thought-provoking constellations. Together, their archives offer a powerful reflection on how posters, in their simplicity, capture the complex layers of time and meaning, connecting us to the historical significance of these posters and their role in shaping our present.
evidence raum
The leitmotif of Shaheen Merali’s oeuvre shows a singular dedication to the public sphere rather than to the capricious whims of the market. With its historical sweep and deep concerns, in the evidence raum, he has found a space large enough for the scale of this never-ending theatre of humanity. The work’s historical sweep is informed by his deep-seated preoccupations and rooted in his endeavour to encapsulate the human experience through visual sculpture — a collage of posters, recognising the potency of symbols, narratives, and myths in shaping political realities. This visual sculpture dauntlessly navigates the delicate realm that straddles the boundary of text and subtext; It works brilliantly as a mis-en-sène. Here, Merali entices viewers into an immersive experience, luring them away from the ocular regime of the handheld gateways to the archaeology of the structures beneath, the language of our contemporary condition, its memory and political syntax, inviting them to actively engage in the interpretation of these posters and thus, in the creation of cultural memory.
evidence raum is an inspirational act in the tradition of the practice invoked by the influential affichiste, French artist Raymond Hains. Embedded in New Realism, Letterism, and Situationism, Hains’s collaborative work with Jacques Villeglé, a celebrated artist recognised for his innovative décollage technique, played a pivotal role in influencing his poster-centric methodology. The décollage process, marked by its purposeful tearing of posters adhered to urban walls, masterfully revealed the concealed layers of urban existence. This transformative act not only unearthed the intricate tapestry of the social and collective memory of the era, but it also etched this vivid portrayal by shedding the superficial facade of urban walls. This artistic technique breathed life into the very essence of the time, leaving an indelible mark on the collective consciousness.
Nonetheless, we may establish a more profound connection between affichismeand the surrealist aspiration of elevating the ordinary aspects of life to a higher plane of reality. As Jacques Villeglé observes, Hains is dedicated to transmuting the everyday into an art form. This notion crystallises in the profound belief that “the image should not exist as a separate universe, but rather, the universe itself should be perceived as an image.” ( However, this quote attributed to Hains appears in different forms such as, “The picture should not be considered as a world in itself, but the world itself should be seen as a picture”; see here it is different from the one here.) This sentiment echoes in Hains’s 1952 essay “When the Photograph Becomes Object”, referenced in In AUTHORIAL INTERVENTION: THE ART OF JACQUES VILLEGLÉ.
Hains’ remarkable skill lay in his ability to detach urban posters from their initial advertising context, thereby transfiguring these commonplace materials into objects of profound contemplation. In his creative hands, he seized the evanescent moments of an ever-evolving consumer culture, crafting a poignant commentary on the ephemeral nature of existence.
In the evidence raum we see several columns which play a pivotal role in urban culture for graphic art. Merali, alongside Vienna-based artist Ramesch Daha, presents his work on these columns; Merali used five columns and invited Daha to present her Eisenerz 1945work on the remaining two. The seven columns in the evidence raum installation are reminiscent of the eponymous Litfasssäule invented by Ernst Litfass. This cylindrical support first appeared in Berlin in the 1850s, and printer Ernst Litfass created it to combat fly-posting. On the five columns, Merali places posters over one another to foreground a further context as an image and a continuation of combative meaning. The activity introduces a new engagement that aligns with the viewing mechanism introduced in the Victorian era columns — of street furniture with a cylindrical outdoor structure, making sense of viewing images non-linearly on the rounded surfaces, including the zoetrope. This installation, with its layered posters and historical references, creates a unique visual experience that invites viewers to engage with the complex layers of time and meaning captured in the posters.
In the footsteps of Hains, Merali grapples with the dialectics of the image and the Poster as he reflects on Hains’ practice: “he went out and recovered posters which were torn and made further compositions out of torn posters. It was important then and remains important now, not only as a complete form but to end the notion of completeness. It ushered in a set of images from near destruction. I was interested in ways to explore the current situation and the role of posters in this entropy, which was initially designed as utopic. We ended up making a mess of the composition by contravening and extracting; there was a kind of disobedience in the Poster and the current decomposition, we
are facing.”
Turning Outside Inside
However, in creating the evidence raum, Merali plays fugues with the ideas.
By bringing these columns into a gallery space, thus creating the evidence raum, Merali turns the practice outside inside into a contrapuntal composition developed by interweaving parts. Trying to tread firmly on the thin line that divides intervention and transaction, differentiating change from exploitation and discerning the power of image from colours of capital, Merali situates these pillars in the cross-sections of these tensions and wrestles with the question, “What heritage is valuable in visual literacy and who decides that?”
Offering the evidence of a narrative, he takes you through histories of the very contestations he problematises. “Things are so opaque; I wanted to foreground things that were drowned out”, and, as if taking a clue from the feminist theorist Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Merali produces the ephemeral evidence of a narrative that responds to “It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories” (Haraway,2016). For Merali, the choice of these materials — posters and flyers — emerged with interest in the formulations that took in the public space of interrogation, which led to new understandings, interpretations, and perspectives, nudging any subversion of conventional histories or habits of cultural memory we have formed about how we situate ourselves in the world.
Both Merali and Daha show collections and ambitions that re-represent the entangled world by reworking the dimensions and materials and using methods that subvert, including collage and architectural printing technologies.
Social history and textual recovery provide a welcome substantiation to support both narratives of multiple histories for a disordered past or a comforting liberal sense of progress. Each pillar within the evidence raum embodies a unique approach to engaging with the world and offers a distinct strategy for comprehending the significance of culture. Collectively, these pillars constitute a diverse compilation of ephemeral materials that have played a role in orchestrating various aspects, including events, aspirations, products, suppliers of literature, music, movies, exhibitions, knowledge dissemination, political transformations, events, and artistic performances. It allows the artists to present the structural negotiations present in the graphic world, designed to distribute subversion, anti-propaganda assumptions, marginal narratives, even self-aggrandisement. The installation argues against flattening information in the current archival turn. Here, we refer to the social phenomenon of general exhibition-making, which too quickly categorises ethically charged positions. Instead, the curatorial emerges as a fulcrum stating the position mainly of those working against racial, gender, and class capitalism yet also profiling that which remains undefined. Thus, the narrative brings into contention the primacy of situated knowledge and foregrounds how critical curatorial theory is inherently intertwined with this complexity and often engages with it.
History in times of a #Corecore aesthetic
In highlighting the importance of fostering connections over accentuating differences,
Merali offers an ontology, an ethic, and an epistemology. In both form and purpose, evidence raum beckons the viewer to embark upon a personal journey of emotions and interpretation, evoking a kindred spirit with the essence of # corecore’s mesmerising video collages circulating on TikTok, or even reminiscent of the profound work crafted by the British filmmaker Adam Curtis. Within this realm, the narrative weaves a tapestry where grand historical narratives interlace intimately with individual experiences, giving rise to a complex and symbiotic relationship. Here, the artistry lies in the meticulous collage of history itself, where disparate elements find harmonious resonance, offering a multifaceted exploration of the (recent) past.
For Generation Z, the post-Obama, and Black Lives Matter (BLM) context revived a particular visual language of public communication. Here, I am alluding to the two vitrines highlighting sixteen posters by the The Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (Spanish: Organización de Solidaridad de los Pueblos de Asia, África y América Latina), (OSPAAAL) Organisation a Cuban political movement which defended anti-imperialist and revolutionary struggles in the Global South through the production of posters. In 1989 Merali curated the contingent of Five Black and Asian artists from Britain who participated in what was termed as the first ‘Third World’biennial. At the time of the Third Havana Biennale (1989), Merali collected particular posters upon his visit to the OSPAAAL Offices in Havana, Cuba. These rare posters are displayed in Vitrines A and B, offering a perfect premise to propose the following argument:
The politics of imperialistic historiography has succeeded in effecting the erasure of the Third World Revolutions by foregrounding the framework of the Cold War. Thus, we are hoodwinked to look at the past century through the lens of the Cold War without realising how the history of the 20th Century is written as the century of Third World Revolutions. The brilliant works of graphic designers, including Rafael Enriquez and Alberto Blanco, are its salient conclusions. Our temporal heritage is continued in the fictional task of progress, which carries its relationship to shame and fame. We have become accustomed to partial knowledge; the other half of the story is never told, wrote Merali. He continues, What is unfolding is a relationship of images to narratives that had been hidden; the posters, the prints, the campaign leaflets- which collectively made us into eager participants in the marches / festivities of the street, are visual tableaux, floating through our public spaces and into our minds and hearts. Yet, we now feel we have been gaslit by all histories, which we were formerly divided into the ‘left and the ‘right’.
The installation of the five columns, as well as the OSPAAAL vitrines, juxtaposes the compelling ways in which posters stemming from diverse human activities, primarily originating from Western Europe and the Global South, are crafted to galvanise their potential audience. The choices made in arranging these exhibits are predominantly intuitive. Still, they are motivated by a deliberate challenge to the established authority governing the representation of art found in national archives within Westernised institutions. Such institutions have often been instrumental in promoting their respective nations’ cultural narratives and interests. In attempting to reinterpret this legacy, with its complex and, at times, violent history, as a civilising force, we are confronted with an enduring preoccupation with memory, which has spread globally.
This preoccupation often compels us to reference Western discourses as the ultimate horizon. This convergence of multiple interests invariably reinforces inequities that perpetuate various societal issues, including the exploitation of sweatshop labourers and the prevalence of poverty wages. Throughout the changing seasons, we find ourselves enthralled by the grandeur of billboards, eagerly anticipating the release of film trailers that herald a forthcoming wave of narratives vying for our attention. Corporations like Disney, Nike, Toyota, Vogue, and Prada have transcended mere brand names to become synonymous with lifestyles.
In this context, the transmissions emanating from these corporate empires have assumed the role of custodians of immense wealth, trusted sources of cultural production, and entities that wield significant influence over public discourse, approaching a semblance of political authority and as custodians of truth in the process. The once provocative punk slogan ‘No Future!’ now expresses a widely shared feeling. It goes beyond a pursuit of mimetic desire and social acceleration. Sharing common ground with Paul Virilio’s concept of ‘dromology’ and David Harvey’s examination of modernity as ‘time-space compression,’ Hermit Rosa’s underlying inquiry and preoccupation traverse a distinctive path: a profound exploration of modernity, dissecting it as a relentless progression marked by the intricate interplay of three dimensions: the swift advance of technology, the rapid pace of societal transformation, and the accelerating tempo of daily existence.
Rosa highlights a paradox wherein, despite the proliferation of time-saving technologies, individuals rarely experience abundant time at their disposal. Moreover, an emerging disconnect becomes palpable in the form of increasing asynchronicity across various social spheres: the deliberate pace of the political realm struggles to match the rapidity of the financial world, while the precious time required for learning and honing skills often dissipates or remains elusive in a world saturated with alluring distractions.
Towards an Imaginal Politics
Central to the first column is a large black-and-white poster of Nelson Mandela, setting the tone for a unified call to action, often misinterpreted as a simple celebration of diversity. The history of political and cultural activism is crucial for understanding our recent past. In contrast, the second column draws on materials embedded in structural inequalities—inequalities that often operate unnoticed yet remain part of our shared contact zones.
The mise-en-scène curated by Merali is superb. The juxtaposition of British-Guyanese artist Hew Locke’s installation poster The Procession with the 1981 film poster Caligula Messalina, a symbol of Roman hedonism and depravity, is striking. This pairing functions as a subtext for our times—where limited attention spans and politics have been reduced to shifting news headlines and “breaking news” templates for viewing the world.
Here, I recall Chiara Bottici’s recent publication Imaginal Politics: Images Beyond Imagination and the Imaginary (2014) , which offers “a new, systematic understanding of the imaginal and its nexus with the political. Chiara Bottici brings a fresh perspective to the formation of political and power relationships and the paradox of a world rich in imagery yet seemingly devoid of imagination.
As we take a look at the third column, we can see the framing of the emerging new world of identities with recent images from queer, trans and punk cultures to push against the modernist barrier, whilst the fourth pillar is pegged on the period known as Thatcherism and the 1980s proliferation of neoliberal societies around the world and self-centred orders. Like Brexit, it was a narrow bandwidth between unsettling the equilibrium of a post-independence world and routinised indifference to the plight of the marginalised. A Britain of internalised values continues to shape cultural dissonance.
Finally, in the fifth column, the migration of images grants us the space to grieve while propelling us forward into ongoing endeavours, often hindered and complicated by institutional constraints. The recent banner of Document 15 bore the optimistic proclamation, “The art is staying in Dialogue,” a noble aspiration that, upon closer examination, proved to be a far more challenging endeavour. The intricacy of this challenge becomes palpable when viewed through the lens of the enduring legacies of imperialism and patriarchy that continue to cast a shadow over our antiquated institutions. Contained within the confines of this partitioned room, the narratives, restricted by the ethereal hue of blue, delve into the colonial wound, a symbol of deprivation and neglect, serving as a poignant reference to the overlooked contributions of those we are duty-bound to remember.
For Merali, the posters, in their ephemeral materiality, offer a more cohesive containment of the image. They function as artefacts of political affect. These posters define the realm of imaginal politics as argued by Chiara Bottici when she implores: “A new direction is needed in critical theory, one that focuses more systematically on the relationship between politics and our capacity to imagine as well as the contemporary transformation of that nexus.” Much like the concept of “imaginal,” the evidence raum introduces the possibility of contemplating a realm that exists before the distinction between the tangible and the intangible, as well as between the individual and the societal. Merali’s discernible focus on the public sphere and the evidence raum emerge as emblematic of his unwavering commitment to the public. Thus, evidence raum is fundamentally rendered as an indispensable contribution to the scholarly discourse on the intersection of art, society, and human consciousness.
Note: The texts in italics are taken from the wall text of Evidence Raum by Shaheen Merali and reproduced in this essay. Evidence Raum. A version of this was earlier published as the lead catalogue essay for the exhibition Evidence Raum titled “Poster as an end of argument of an Image.”
