Grindon, who is an academic specialising in the history of activist art and current research fellow at the V&A, participated in activist movements and organised workshops with protesters to find out which objects would be most suitable for the exhibition. Banner for UNITE the union at the march in support of the NHS in Manchester. Photography by Ed Hall Disobedient Objects is an exhibition about out-designing authority. Looking beyond art and design framed by markets, connoisseurs and professionals, this exhibition considers the role of social movement cultures in re-making our world from below. Disobedient objects can be ingenious and sometimes beautiful solutions to complex problems, often produced with limited resources and under duress. Working by any media necessary, they may be poor in means, but they are often rich in ends. The 1989 Met. Museum poster has been periodically updated by the Guerrilla Girls. The subtitle for the 2012 reworking now reads: ‘Less that 4% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 76% of the nudes are female’. The iconic Met. Museum poster is accompanied by correspondences and gorilla masks in the Disobedient Objects exhibition. The presence of their work is attracting the attention of a diverse audience. The costumed mannequins have proved to be a source of fascination for young girls in particular; the monumental forms are symbols of strength and ambition. The Guerrilla Girls have supported the exhibition with a late-night visit to the V&A. They retrospectively described the exhibition Disobedient Objects as ‘really outside the box’. They continue to wear the notorious gorilla masks as the ‘conscience of the art world’.

This started off in Italy and was taken up in Britain and America by students who had seen them on social media. A group of women artists who, in 1985, set out to expose racism, sexism and corruption in the art worldAndy Dao and Ivan Cash's Occupy George overprinted dollar bill, 2011. Photograph: courtesy Andy Dao and Ivan Cash Dónde están nuestros hijos (“Where are our children?”). Chilean Arpilleras wall hanging, Roberta Bacic collection. Photo: Martin Melaugh What we'd like people to take away from the exhibition is the idea that design isn't always about professional practice - it's something that people can get involved in themselves," said Grindon. "The actors changing the world are doing so using something that they have in their hands already." Occupy George overprinted dollar bill. Image courtesy of Andy Dao and Ivan Cash

But is this yet another co-opting of the counter-culture by the establishment? As I arrived, my scepticism was challenged by two panels of ceramic collage flanking the museum’s entrance. Commissioned from the West London artist, Carrie Reichardt, they each depict a protestor holding up a shield decorated to look like a book cover against the baton-wielding figures of riot police with fifty pound notes collaged in their visors. The book-shields bear the slogans ‘History is a Weapon’, ‘Nothing is inevitable, Everything is Possible’ and ‘Power to the People’, ‘Art is not a mirror to reflect the world, Rather it is a hammer to shape it’, and seemed to announce that disobedience was not only possible, but also desirable.All the objects bear a relation to the body, presented as the congealed memories of social protest.

Then there’s a range of appliquéd textiles made by women under the Pinochet regime in Chile, which documented the abuses going on at the time. They were sold to supporters outside the country and the workshops in which they were made offered a safe space for the women – while their eyes were down on sewing, they found it easier to talk about the atrocities they had experienced. Often, the most simple of ideas prove to be the most effective, so I’ll talk through the process of making a mount for one of the Bust cards featured in the exhibition. The exhibition's approach to identifying and procuring objects is in line with the "rapid response" curatorial process introduced by the V&A recently, which has seen it acquire objects including Katy Perry eyelashesand the world's first 3D-printed gun. Bike Bloc Graphic Poster, Anonymous. Image courtesy of the V&A MuseumNews from Dezeen Events Guide, a listings guide covering the leading design-related events taking place around the world. Plus occasional updates. Dezeen Awards China After this photograph was taken, each mount was then taken off to be lacquered and left to dry for 24 hours. I then threaded shrinkable tubing onto the wire and moulded these evenly into place using a heat gun, which was done to avoid any metal snagging against the fabric of the doll. Testing out the mount in the museum workshop. In the same section of the show we have “bloc books”, painted shields in the form of giant works of literature and philosophy made by students protesting at education cuts. When they demonstrated, the students were effectively being defended by culture, and by striking the shields, the police not only invoked the destruction of books but were also forced into a performance without realising it.