Posters on Environmental Protection

In introducing the images, the curators of the site point out that this group of posters, produced at a time when Chinese authorities “became more aware of the impact of environmental problems on the country’s economic performance, ” don’t represent negative outcomes of industrialization (pollution, blight, acid rain). Instead, citizens are asked to attend to their immediate personal environments—to pick up litter and plant trees.

Steven Zhang, who has researched environmental attitudes among factory owners in China, wrote last year in the Atlantic that his interviewees espoused a vision of environmentalism that “focused almost exclusively on the effects of environmental damage to personal health.” Zhang found that instrumentalism—the preservation of environmental balance in the service of one or another human good—dominated discussions about environmental protection.

The posters below exemplify that approach, focusing on hygiene, regulation, and morality.

International Institute for Social History, chineseposters.net