Temporary Hoarding and Rock Against Racism Graphics

Part of Black History Month 2019
Hillhead Library
3rd - 31st October

As part of Black History Month 2019 we are pleased to be displaying the enlarged covers of the fanzine Temporary Hoarding at Hillhead Library alongside a number of posterworks promoting anti-racist events, gigs and carnivals. These posterworks were first presented in 2017 to augment the exhibition Rock Against Racism by Syd Shelton at Street Level Photoworks.

Syd Shelton was one of the key graphic designers who created Temporary Hoarding, the fanzine of Rock Against Racism. as well as posters to promote events, which were all done in the punk style of the time.

The graphics, which were done collectively, were very much led by the technology of the time. Offset litho had replaced letterpress, which was as liberating to designers as Apple Macs were to be a decade later. Our work was influenced by the Constructivists and montage favourites like John Heartfield. Our tools were the photocopier, the photomechanical transfer camera and a very Heath Robinson American Headlining Machine. Putting together Temporary Hoarding almost always involved at least one all-night session, sometimes with people dropping into the studio with a few beers or to put their two bobs worth into the artwork. – Syd Shelton in Creative Review, June 2016.

Also on display is a selection of material related to Scottish Rock Against Racism events and activities. The material was lent by various individuals involved in cultural and activist anti-racist work in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The display includes rare photographs and graphics from the RAR Edinburgh Carnival in Craigmillar in 1978, and various other memorabilia and photographic remnants from the time.

This exhibition is one of a series that revisits selected projects marking Street Level’s 30th Anniversary.