With the fifth Bersih rally set to take place on November 19, activist Fahmi Reza has come up with eleven  free-to-download protest posters in the run up to the street demonstration.

Fahmi made a return on October 17 on his Facebook after a month long online hiatus, requesting protest slogans from netizens. 

Within a day, he received 123 slogans from folks on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The political activist, well known to protest through the arts, got to work immediately.

The first protest poster, featuring a grinning pig holding dollar notes was inspired by English Civil War, a 1979 EP by punk rock band, The Clash.

Fahmi explains that the EP cover depicts a still from a 1954 animated adaptation of George Orwell’s dystopian novel Animal Farm.

 

 

Each day, Fahmi came up with a poster based on protest slogans he had received.

For the protest poster below, Fahmi said it was created out of “gratitude” towards Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s announcement of Budget 2017.

This one landed a PKR lawmaker in trouble with the Malaysian Communications And Multimedia Commission (MCMC) for uploading the poster onto his Facebook page.

Majority of the protest slogans featured the scandal beleaguered Malaysian politician.

Some of the posters also depict public sentiment – specifically from the point of view of youths – on the state of affairs in the country.

With the large number of protest slogans that kept coming in daily, Fahmi said there were times he found it difficult to pick the best slogan.

Fahmi also created posters in other languages as well. Here is one in Tamil which translates to “Stand Against Corruption”.

There are variation of this poster in Mandarin, Kadazan Dusun and Iban languages.

The Election Commission (EC) is another target in the protest posters.

 And cheekily,  Najib’s poem also became a muse for the protest art. 

To encourage the public to express their own protest through art, Fahmi is now mulling to organise a free protest sign-making workshop.

“Korang boleh buat protest sign guna 11 design yang aku dah sediakan, atau buat sepanduk dengan design dan slogan korang sendiri. Aku akan tunjukkan bagaimana cara-cara dan teknik yang aku selalu gunakan untuk bikin sepanduk protes.”

The workshop is being planned for this weekend at a location yet to be decided in Kuala Lumpur.

Fahmi Reza can be followed on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Have protest posters of your own to share? Send em over to [email protected] 

Tags: Fahmi Reza