When posters channelled punk: how the Tin Sheds artists took feminism to the streets

Curator Katie Yuill poses with the Girls in the Tin Shed exhibition at Sydney University Gallery. Photo: Steven Siewert

Decades before Banksy took political messages, made them sexy and infiltrated society with street art, a group of Sydney women were already on the case.

The University of Sydney's Tin Sheds workshop space was a hotbed of female artistic expression, producing an arsenal of posters tackling feminist issues, anti-nuclear crusades and Aboriginal land rights.

To tie-in with the 40th anniversary of International Women's Year, Girls at the Tin Sheds: Sydney Feminist Posters 1975-90 is an exhibition featuring 76 posters from a vault of more than 800 which vividly depict the discourse of the time.

Tony Robertson's History I . Photo: Sarah Thomas

Artist Marie McMahon, who has several works in the exhibition, says they saw themselves as outsiders to the mainstream art establishment, inspired by acts like the Sex Pistols and the Clash.

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"There was a lot of rather dry propaganda around but I think we brought a bit of aesthetics and excitement to the way we presented ideas," McMahon says.

"A lot of it is rough. You look back and think, well, yeah, the printing was pretty dodgy and some of the design could be a bit amateurish at times but there's also that energy, there's that spirit that comes out of that roughness."

Marie McMahon's A Stitch in Time Saves Nine encouraged men to be equally responsible for birth control. Photo: Sarah Thomas

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When posters channelled punk: how the Tin Sheds artists took feminism to the streets