The production brigade's reading room

大队图书室
Dadui tushushi
The production brigade's reading room
1974, September
Shaanxi renmin chubanshe (陕西人民出版社)
53x77 cm.
BG E15/268

During the Cultural Revolution, propaganda does its utmost to portray China as an agrarian Utopia, although the images clearly show that progress has arrived in the rural areas, as can be seen from, a.o., the radio receiver on the wall. This poster was designed by one of the peasant painters from Huxian, Shaanxi Province. The Huxian painters' highly political paintings provided idyllic slices of the good life in the rural areas, and were peopled with happy and enthusiastic peasants engaged in agriculture, political meetings and study sessions.

A reworked version of this poster was published in January 1975. How can an image can be changed and/or altered to suit changing political demands, or changes in the message that needs to be propagated? Comparing these two posters is almost like a game of 'spot-the-ten-differences'!

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