Protest and Survive
Designer
Peter Kennard
United Kingdom, born 1949
Publisher
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Date1980
Dimensions23 1/2 x 17 1/2 in. (59.7 x 44.5 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LinePoster House Permanent Collection
Object numberPH.9088
DescriptionIntended only for use during an actual emergency, Protect and Survive was a civil-defense campaign orchestrated by the British government to inform citizens about what to do during a nuclear attack. It consisted of television broadcasts, short-wave radio announcements, pamphlets, and newspaper advertisements. Soon after the Protect and Survive campaign was released, the historian E. P. Thompson published a parody pamphlet, Protest and Survive, skewering the government’s proposed plan. On October 26, 1980, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) hosted a march and rally, taking its name from Thompson’s publication. It was the largest protest of its kind in the United Kingdom, with more than eighty thousand participants. Leading Labour Party politicians spoke alongside a performance by the punk band Killing Joke. In 1983, a similar march attracted four hundred thousand protestors, demonstrating the extent of public opposition to government policy. While Peter Kennard often lifted images of weapons of war from official manufacturing catalogs, in this instance he purchased a toy nuclear missile from the children’s store Hamleys, smashed it with a hammer, and photographed it around a hand-cut cardboard peace sign (the symbol of the CND). On View
Not on view
