Leap Year 1968 (2020) Robert Davidson</h6

It’s all here in black and white… A lean woman leaping over the folded form of a taut man: shared dynamism, force and strength jumps out at us from Robert Davidson’s photograph. Purveyors of ‘fashion, music and hippie culture’ London Co. 'Osiris Visions' popped the words ‘Leap Year’ in pink above her shoulders when they published this as a poster in 1968. Back then it was also overprinted, co-opted by occupying students to muster direct action, protest against an LSE director thought to be complicit in Rhodesia’s racist regime. More than half a century later, in leap year 2020 it still packs a radical punch. In an otherwise comprehensive and erudite book ‘Posters’ – in contrast to the Atelier Populaire’s militant output – Bevis Hillier posited Davidson’s image as ‘decorative’, a ‘frivolous novelty’. Somehow a precursor to Athena’s arse scratching tennis player. It’s nothing of the kind. Leap Year 1968 (2020) for flyingleaps is braced with energy, optimism and a fervent, anti-establishment playfulness. And play, especially collaborative play, foments imagination, creativity. It conjures other realities and imagining alternative modes of being is the most political of acts. It affords opportunities to see the world and our place in it differently. Leapfrogging the slew of mainstream media mischief and vainglorious right-wing politicking is not an option. Things look bleak but, as Gary Younge signed off his final Guardian column saying, “The propensity to despair is strong, but shouldn’t be indulged. Sing yourself up. Imagine a world in which you might thrive, for which there is no evidence. And then fight for it.” Stay true and never give up.