My life as a 'Jillposter': the radical feminist poster group that pasted prints around Melbourne in the ‘80s

• Jillposters was a self-funded radical feminist poster group active in Melbourne from 1983 until 1988.
• Yet we produced an amazing range of posters and postcards, most of which are held in Australia’s national collection.

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A medium for political messages

• Women were at the forefront of postermaking in Australia in the early 1980s.
• Silkscreen printing, as it was taught at art schools, was and is a laborious, hand-driven process.

But our posters were ideal as a medium for conveying political messages and disseminating information. Many poster workshops and groups were born in the 1970s and 80s in various locations; including Megalo Workshop in Canberra, Tin Sheds and Earthworks Poster Collective in Sydney, and Red Letter Press and Another Planet Posters in Melbourne.

Off to a flying start

• Jillposters got off to a flying start in February 1983 when a group of friends met at the University of Melbourne student union to discuss forming a political poster group.
• We each contributed the grand sum of A$10 to get things started and to open a bank account.

• Our initial plan was to paste up all of our posters around the streets of Melbourne.
• Going out late at night with a bucket of sloppy wallpaper paste, large brushes and a roll of posters was all very exciting.
• Our aim was to find walls where our political posters wouldn’t be covered up by other groups pasting up band posters.

Shifting gear

We then shifted gear slightly and allocated a smaller portion for street paste up and the larger portion for sales through retail outlets such as galleries and bookshops in Australia and New Zealand. Poster production soon increased and our designs became more detailed and colourful.

• We were also contacted by mainstream galleries wanting to acquire our posters for their collections.
• Both the National Gallery of Australia and the Art Gallery of Ballarat bought posters in 1983 and then continued to collect all the posters we produced.
• The State Library of Victoria also collected them and, in more recent years, the Ian Potter Museum at the University of Melbourne collected a range of posters.

Carole Wilson received government arts funding from federal and state arts bodies when she worked for Another Planet Posters between 1988 and 1990. She was a founding member of Jillposters and then went on to work at Another Planet Posters.