Displays Of Portraits
Summary
Displays Of Portraits is method 25 in Gene Sharp’s 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action, listed under Symbolic Public Acts — the visible-symbolic sub-cluster of Nonviolent Protest and Persuasion [source: commons-198-methods].
Body
Sharp listed displays of portraits as method 25, alongside Paint as protest (26) and New signs and names (27), in the Symbolic Public Acts sub-cluster (methods 18-30) [source: commons-198-methods]. The method names the mass display of portraits of victims, missing persons, political prisoners, or movement leaders — a symbolic act that makes absent people present, identifies the cause, and invites the public to look.
The method is distinctive in that it externalises a person rather than a demand. Where a banner says “Free them all”, a portrait says “Free Maria Gomez, 28, detained 14 March without charge”. The portrait converts a category into a face; the face builds a relationship with a viewer who never met Maria but who now recognises her image on a poster, a candle, a t-shirt. This is the individualisation tactic — a single named human stands in for the structural grievance, and the public’s emotional response is harder to dismiss than a figure of statistics.
The classic modern repertoires are the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (Argentina, 1977 onward) carrying portraits of the disappeared, the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia displaying portraits of fallen conscripts during the Chechen wars, and the disappeared-beloved vigils of civil-disobedience campaigns from Mexico to Ireland. The method pairs naturally with candlelight-march and memorial vigils, and is closely related to naming-and-shaming — the difference being that portrait displays centre the victim whereas naming-and-shaming centres the perpetrator.
The risks are real. Portraits of the deceased become a target for state vandalism if the movement’s adversaries are willing to remove them; portraits of prisoners can be confiscated as political material; portraits of movement leaders can personalise the conflict in ways that lead to targeting. The method works best when the campaign has decided who to display, why, and for how long — the impulse to put more faces on more surfaces is hard to resist and easy to weaponise against you.
See methods-of-nonviolent-action for the broader method library / context.
Use it for
Mass display of portraits of victims, missing persons, political prisoners, or movement leaders — a symbolic act that makes absent people present, identifies the cause, and invites the public to look.
Worked examples
- mothers-of-the-plaza-de-mayo-campaign-for-democracy-and-the — the Argentine mothers wore headscarves and displayed portraits of their disappeared children, making the missing visible to the public.
- committee-of-soldiers-mothers-of-russia-campaign-against-the — Russian Soldiers’ Mothers displayed portraits of fallen conscripts to draw attention to military abuses.
- african-americans-threaten-march-on-washington-1941 — the 1941 threatened march drew on visible iconography to identify the demands and the constituency.
Learn more
- On Wikipedia: Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il portraits — CC BY-SA 4.0
FAQ
What is displays of portraits?
Displays of portraits is method 25 in Gene Sharp’s 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action, listed under Symbolic Public Acts in the visible-symbolic sub-cluster of Nonviolent Protest and Persuasion. It is the mass display of portraits of victims, missing persons, political prisoners, or movement leaders, making absent people present, identifying the cause, and inviting the public to look [source: commons-198-methods].
How do portrait displays make absent people visible?
Portrait displays externalise a person rather than a demand. A banner can say “Free them all,” while a portrait says “Free Maria Gomez, 28, detained 14 March without charge.” The portrait converts a category into a face and lets a single named human stand for a structural grievance, making the public’s emotional response harder to dismiss than a figure of statistics.
What is the difference between portrait displays and naming and shaming?
Portrait displays centre the victim, whereas naming and shaming centres the perpetrator. Portraits can show victims, missing persons, political prisoners, or movement leaders, making absent people present and inviting the public to look. Naming and shaming is therefore related, but it directs attention toward the person responsible rather than the person affected.
What are the risks of displaying portraits in a campaign?
Portraits of deceased people can become targets for state vandalism; portraits of prisoners can be confiscated as political material; and portraits of movement leaders can personalise the conflict in ways that lead to targeting. The method works best when the campaign has decided who to display, why, and for how long, rather than simply putting more faces on more surfaces.
Related
Open Questions
- Page relies only on the Commons 198-methods pointer. Grounded source content (Sharp’s Politics of Nonviolent Action, vol. 2; movement-specific case-study literature on symbolic portrait methods) would strengthen the rationale above.