Topsy Qur'et
Implacables, 2005

Implacables was created by Topsy Qur'et in response to the national tabloid newspapers flooding anti-war demonstrations with their mass produced branded placards. Implacables invites people to express their own opinions by making their own image or slogan. Placards range from handmade signs expressing personal beliefs to mass-produced slogans of political organisations such as CND, the Socailist Workers Party and even the Mirror Newspaper. For the Stop the War demonstration on February 15th 2003 the Mirror Newspaper produced thousands of NO placards. The subsequent low-level television coverage of this huge event, centred on images of what appeared to be tens of thousands of Mirror Readers saying No. The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is the most profilic producers of placards, which they hand out to demonstrators at the begining of a march. This simple technique gives the impression to the general public viewing the demonstration as it winds its way along that the SWP is a much bigger organisation that it really is. To counter this hijacking of demonstrations by certain organisations Topsy Qur'et started producing blank placards for people to make their own statements or drawings.