T-shirt designers inspired by Tiananmen Square Tank Man and other icons of protest
- Tank Man became a symbol of the student protests and crackdown in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, in 1989 after he was filmed blocking a row of PLA tanks
- He was never seen again, but the photograph of his defiant stand has inspired numerous T-shirt designs
This week marks the 30th anniversary of the start of the Tiananmen Square protests that ended in carnage on June 4. An unknown number of Chinese students were killed by the People’s Liberation Army. Amid the slaughter, an unidentified hero, later dubbed Tank Man, emerged. Clutching two shopping bags that made him resemble the scales of justice, Tank Man blocked a line of T59 tanks by stubbornly standing in front of it, even briefly boarding the front tank, before two blue-shirted goons whisked him away.
Despite vanishing from the scene, Tank Man soon became an icon. Time magazine ranked the shot of him, taken by photojournalist Jeff Widener, as one of the 100 most influential photos of all time. Just like the Che Guevara portrait, Tank Man has grown pervasive in fashion and is paraded across a range of T-shirts.
“One person can make all the difference,” says the slogan emblazoned on one created by San Jose, California-based Revolutionary Threads.
A less philosophical, more arty version comes hand-airbrushed with stencils via eBay merchant Nietoair. Then there is the minimal version, from Minnesota-based Liberty Maniacs, which was founded in 2003 by designer Dan McCall.
