Megalo
by Alison Alder

 

I don't think the toxic fumes of printing over the last twelve or so years have damaged my memory that much. But I had a prepared speech ready to deliver tonight and I've had to change it as I feel that I must, in the interest of fellow workers and histocial accuracy, tell a different story from the one written in the catalogue accompanying the Megalo exhibition.

 

It is sad that in the case of collectives many people are usually written out of history due to our bourgeois desire for stars and heroes, usually men. Let me redress the balance. 

 

Canberra in the late 1970s was a hot bed of political activism. We had endured the Fraser government since November 1975 and unemployment in Canberra was at an all time high and at crisis point. For this reason Jobless Action was a very important organisation. It not only gave support to unemployed people but actively put together schemes to give some hope of earning an income and self-determination, and as a by-product also gave some focus to political activism. 

 

Several people in Canberra had been screenprinting in garages around the place, mainly producing posters to advertise events and perhaps less often to express an ideological opinion. I must apologise for leaving out some names but a group including Rob O'Brien, Gada Serilus, Paul Ford, Roland Manderson, Di Johnson and myself plus two workers from Jobless Action Annie Kavanagh and Julian Webb thought we should set up a screenprinting workshop. JA called a public meeting putting a notice in the Canberra Times asking for anyone interested in a workshop to attend. Quite a lot of people came to that inaugural meeting including many strangers, one of them being Colin Little.

 

I should point out that Canberra was very insular and parochial in those days. So when Colin told us that he started Earthworks Poster Collective, his statement was met with a great lack of interest or awe. Sydney could have been 2,000 miles away rather than only 200. We were however more familiar with the work of Lucifoil Posters through David Morrow spreading those posters all over Canberra.

 

Colin Little, would I think, laugh his head off at being described as a master printer as in the catalogue. And unfortunately I'm not laughing at reading of myself described as his apprentice. My feminist principles of the time would certainly not have allowed me to place myself in that role. In fact I was moving away from the art school to get away from that particular male hierarchical structure that was in place at the time. 

 

Paul Ford and myself were the only two people in the group with an art school background. In fact when Megalo started we were still at school. The workshop wasn't set up as a workshop for artists. (If artists were to be differentiated from ordinary folk which was another ideological argument of the time.) It was set up as an access workshop for people to state their political and social beliefs, act as a cheap advertising resource for marginalised groups, be a teaching facility for unemployed people and the general public, act as an income earning place of work and also to print art editions if required.

 

Once the space was found, a group, and I must emphasise a group of people started Megalo and worked there. Once again, I know I have forgotten some names but Gatta Seriuls, Rob O'Brien, David Morrow, Colin Little, myself, Paul Ford and Rowan Manderson were all there. Gatta and I formed a united women's front and did a lot of work together producing some wonderful posters none of which are in the exhibition unfortunately.

 

Colin and I worked as co-coordinators answerable to a committee. We were striving against a hierarchical system and wanted no stars or heroes. To be truthful Colin and I fought like cat and dog in the first few months and the collective was split, hence the fact of two co-ordinators. A truce was later called between male and females, Sydney versus Canberra etc. and Colin and I became firm friends. But to finish off if you were writing a Megalo history again some time in the future, I'm sure my memory is quite different from any other workers in the collective. It is worthwhile getting multiple viewpoints and putting them together. And in case we're all feeling a bit cynical I'd like to read the rousing ideology from Megalo's first poster show, Bitumen with a Gallery in 1981. The catalogue essay was written by Paul Ford.