Make A Future That Works come to life with your own protest art and maybe win a prize

Thousands of families from across the UK are being urged to make their very own contribution to the three A Future That Works marches happening this weekend by designing protest art that they can carry with them on Saturday (20 October) and submit as an entry in an exciting placard competition supported by the TUC and False Economy.

The competition - which closes at midnight on Monday 22 October - is called Make the March and is the idea of Guy Atkins who was behind the Save Our Placards project at the end of last year’s TUC March For An Alternative. Guy and colleagues from Goldsmiths, University of London, have been finding new audiences across the country for the hundreds of brilliant placards they were given at the mass demonstration last March.

This time round, five banners or placards deemed the most amusing, creative and politically astute by the judging panel - artist Bob and Roberta Smith, comedian Josie Long and the Mirror’s Kevin Maguire - will each win £100.

Make the March is keen to stress that the competition doesn’t need the actual placards for the judges to make their decision, competition organisers want people to hold onto their creations for use this Saturday. Instead people are being asked to upload photographs of their works of art to the website www.makethemarch.org.uk. Everyone can then share the placards and banners they like most, hopefully getting more people talking about the importance of A Future That Works and encouraging attendance on the day.

For further details of the competition, go to www.makethemarch.org.uk where you can upload an image of your placard, banner, poem, costume or song. Everyone taking part or visiting the site is being encouraged to share the art they like the most on Facebook, Google Plus, Pinterest, Twitter or email. The most popular images will then make it onto the shortlist from which the three judges can pick their five favourite pieces, the creators of which will each win £100.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: ’Placards and banners have played a big part in protest marches down the years, and A Future That Works this Saturday is no different. Austerity is failing, yet the government seems determined to persist with a set of economic policies which are making life unbearable for millions of families, and especially hard for those with sons and daughters in their teens or twenties who are unable to find work.

’This Saturday’s march and rally will allow thousands of ordinary people from communities across the UK hit hard by cuts to show the government exactly what they think of their discredited austerity economics. Along the march route and at the rally in the Park, thousands of amusing, direct and cleverly-thought out banners and placards will help do just this and the most popular on the competition website will win a prize.’

Competition organiser Guy Atkins said: ’Make the March is about recognising one of the march’s biggest assets - people’s creativity. And we hope by sharing some of the great placards before the day, more people will be encouraged to come along to the marches and rallies in London, Glasgow and Belfast this Saturday, 20 October.

’So bring your work on the march with you, and look out for other works of creative protest art on your way round. If someone’s placard makes you laugh, make sure they’ve uploaded a pic to the site!’

This Saturday people attending the TUC’s A Future That Works march will be assembling on the Embankment from 11am and will move off at noon - via Whitehall and Trafalgar Square for a rally in Hyde Park which is due to finish at 4pm. The Scottish TUC is organising a similar event in Glasgow and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions Northern Ireland Committee in Belfast - see www.afuturethatworks.org for more details.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

- All TUC press releases can be found at www.tuc.org.uk

- Follow the TUC on Twitter: @tucnews

- On Saturday 20 October thousands of people from across the UK will be heading to London for A Future That Works - a march which starts on the Embankment and ends with a rally in Hyde Park. The day is being organised by the TUC in protest against the government’s austerity measures and calls for a new approach which puts growth and an economy that works for ordinary families at the heart of government policy www.afuturethatworks.org