A new exhibition at the William Morris Gallery is looking at a century of posters that have campaigned for political change, from the Suffragette movement of the early twentieth century, to the Arab Spring.

A World to Win: Posters of Protest and Revolution, which opens on Saturday, October 8, will present around seventy posters that were picked from the national poster collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, in South Kensington.

The work of diverse artists, graphic designers and print collectives will be showcased and will include new works gathered from recent outbursts of protest in the UK, Russia and the Middle East.

The show will feature posters made by the Atelier Populaire during the student protests in Paris in 1968, as well as examples from the Russian, Chinese and Cuban Revolutions. Also on display will be a selection from the Gallery's collection of Walter Crane's Cartoons for the Cause. His early socialist iconography challenged the idea that political struggle was remote from and even destructive of a sense of beauty.

The exhibition also includes posters by British political artist, Peter Kennard, whose imagery has become synonymous with the modern protest movement.

He says: "The William Morris Gallery is the perfect place to be showing posters of protest and dissent.

"Morris was committed to methods of cultural production that could break through the shackles of elitism and polite society."

A World to Win: Posters of Protest and Revolution, William Morris Gallery, Lloyd Park House, Forest Road, Walthamstow, E17 4PP, Saturday, October 8 to Sunday, January 15, details: wmgallery.org.uk

By Rachel Russell