“Paper Bullets: 110+ Years of Political Stickers from Around the World”

PM Press, 2026-27 (Forthcoming) and Exhibition Proposal

Catherine Tedford

Hidden in plain sight, publicly placed stickers with printed images and/or text have been used for decades as a form of sociopolitical protest or to advocate sociopolitical agendas. In the United States, for example, as early as the 1910s, labor unions such as the Industrial Workers of the World created the first “stickerettes” or “silent agitators” to oppose poor working conditions, intimidate bosses, and condemn capitalism.

Later, during World War II, Allied and Axis countries dropped gummed “paper bullets” or “confetti soldiers” from the sky as a form of psychological warfare to demoralize both troops and civilians. During the 1960s and ’70s American civil rights era, paper “night raiders” protested the war in Vietnam and U.S. imperialism, calling for racial and gender equity among blacks, whites, men, and women. Colorful, lightweight German spuckies have also been used for several decades to combat fascism and sexism and to comment on environmental issues.

Drawing from the private collection of Catherine Tedford, the exhibition and publication feature thousands of original, unused political stickers from Canada, Egypt, England, Germany, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Spain, Ukraine, the United States, and other countries, dating from the early 20th century to present day. Stickers are organized by geographic location, date, and subject, including gender and sexuality, labor and workers’ rights, racism, surveillance, war and conflict, the environment, and police reform, among others (see below).

Catherine Tedford, gallery director at St. Lawrence University (Canton, NY, USA), first discovered street stickers while visiting Berlin in 2003 and has since collected over 18,000 original, unused examples from countries around the world. A two-time recipient of a DAAD German Academic Exchange Service grant, she has traveled to Berlin over 20 times to study street stickers. She writes about political stickers on her research blog Stickerkitty and has presented papers at academic conferences in Canada, England, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, and the United States.

In 2014 and 2015, two initial Paper Bullets exhibitions were presented at Hatch Kingdom Sticker Museum, Berlin, Germany. Variations of the initial Paper Bullets exhibitions were also featured in the United States at Susquehanna University (PA) in 2015, St. Lawrence University (NY) in 2017, and Central Washington University (WA) in 2018. The most comprehensive exhibition of Paper Bullets was presented at Neurotitan Gallery in Berlin, Germany, in 2019. (See review in Berliner Zeitung.) An exhibition of political stickers called “Voices of the People” was presented at the Woody Guthrie Center in 2023-24.

Stickers have been published in a Street Art Graphics digital archive available to the public, free of charge, in Jstor. The archive now numbers over 5,100 items, thanks to an initial multi-year start-up grant from the U.S. Council of Independent Colleges (2015-2018) and a subsequent collection development grant to catalogue stickers by female artists (2018-2019).

Catherine Tedford Writing Samples

Catherine Tedford Published Essays and Journal/Zine Articles

Additional Contributors

  • “Stickers: The 1960s and After,” Paul Buhle, historian and founder of S.D.S. journal Radical America.
  • “The Silenced and Exiled Voices of Russian Activists, 2009-2012,” Irina Bukaharin, environmental and human rights researcher and advocate
  • “’¡No al Genocidio!’: Spanish Stickers in Solidarity with Palestine,” John Collins (USA), director of Weave News and author of Global Palestine (2011) and Occupied By Memory (2004) and co-editor of Collateral Language (2002) and Globalizing Collateral Language (2021).
  • “The Phone is Tapped,” CrimethInc. Ex-Workers’ Collective.
  • “I’d Rather Be Smashing Imperialism,” Lincoln Cushing, Docs Populi.
  • “Three Things I Learned from the Mask of Freedom,” Ganzeer (Egypt), street artist.
  • “The Guide to Behaving Badly,” Guerrilla Girls artists’ collective.
  • “No Intel Inside” (George W. Bush) and “Watergate: The Proof Increases Everyday” (Richard M. Nixon) stickers, Kevin Howley (USA), professor of media studies at DePauw University and blogger at Constituent Notes.
  • “Sticking It to the Patriarchy with Sister Serpents Radical Feminist Art Collective,” Jen Hoyer (USA), librarian and archivist, CUNY New York City College of Technology.
  • “Rebel Stickers from Ukraine’s Euromaidan Revolution,” Nazar Kozak, art historian.
  • “‘Murderous City of Lakes’ Protest Stickers and the 2020 Uprising in Minneapolis,” Todd Lawrence and Heather Shirey (USA), University of St. Thomas, Saint Paul, MN, and founders of the George Floyd & Anti-Racist Street Art Archive.
  • “Contra la Violencia Machista en España: Against Gender Violence in Spain,” Marina Llorente. Co-editor of Sites of Memory in Spain and Latin America: Trauma, Politics, and Resistance (2015) and Activism Through Poetry: Critical Spanish Poems in Translation (2017); co-author with John Collins and Paloma Elvira of “Victims” in Globalizing Collateral Language (2021).
  • “The ‘Shut Rikers’ Sticker Project,” Josh MacPhee (USA), artist/activist/curator, Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative; Interference Archive, Brooklyn, NY; and co-editor of Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics & Culture
  • Featured artists from Slavers of New York project Ada Reso, Maria Robles, and Elsa Eli Waithe (USA).
  • “Silent Agitators: Their Secret,” Penelope Rosemont (USA), co-founder of the Chicago Surrealist Group.
  • “Women’s Rights, Gender and Sexuality in Spain,” “Animal Rights in Spain,” and other topics, Elena Shaw, St. Lawrence University class of 2023, independent research fellow.

Examples (USA)

Examples (Germany), all dated 2000s-present except spuckies

Examples (Spain)

Examples (Canada)

Examples (Mexico)

Examples (Egypt)

Examples (Russia)

Examples (Ukraine)

Born-digital photographs of stickers in situ from NYC, Berlin, Montreal, Poznan, and other cities can be added to both the exhibition and publication. Additional information about other traveling sticker exhibitions can be found here.

Catherine Tedford C.V.