item details
Overview
This poster protests against the satellite receiver at Waihopai, Marlborough, New Zealand. Citizens’ groups have long questioned the presence and activities of foreign military and intelligence installations in New Zealand: the United States 'Deep Freeze' military base at Harewood (Christchurch Airport); and the Government Communications Security Bureau intelligence gathering installations at Waihopai and Tangimoana (Manawatu). Protests have been held against the Waihopai facility since before its construction started in 1987.
Famous image
The cartoonist of this poster has ironically repurposed the most famous of all American First World War posters. In 1917 James Montgomery Flagg designed his 'I Want You' recruitment poster with his self-portrait as 'Uncle Sam' (the male personification of the United States). He was inspired by Alfred Leete’s famous British First World War recruitment poster of Lord Kitchener pointing directly at the viewer in 1914. This concept has been copied many times since, both in support of war and against.
In this particular version, Uncle Sam is played by U.S. President Ronald Reagan (1981-89). The image was possibly drawn overseas, then repurposed locally for the anti-Waihopai campaign. Cutting and pasting of images and text has long been a poster-making strategy - you can see cut and paste marks around the text. All this work would have been done by hand.