Olivio Martínez Viera, Untitled, 1971 | Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration

Poster on orange paper depicting a muscular figure with tools for arms, squeezing the shape of Africa through a funnel and consuming it as a liquid resembling oil. The body tapers into a narrow section in the upper torso where dollar signs exit the body.

Untitled

Creator: Olivio Martínez Viera
Commissioned by: OSPAAAL (Organization of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America)
Date: 1971

Between the 1960s and 1990s, more than fifty designers worked at OSPAAAL (the Organisation of Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America). Based in Cuba, they made magazines and posters that were sent around the world. Their aim was to promote radical political ideas. Many of their posters celebrate socialist revolutions and liberation movements from the Global South.

Olivio Martínez Viera’s design represents the U.S.A. as a monstrous organism extracting resources from Africa for financial gain.