The image is stark and its message brutally clear. Under the headline Health Cuts Can Kill, a sickly, middle-aged man lies with his arms spread on a metal hospital bed, his right hand clasping the rails of the metal bedstead. The grainy black and white photo is clinically dissected by an anonymous hand wielding a surgical scalpel, slicing a gaping red gash across the prone patient’s torso and chest.

The poster is one of many created by the artists Loraine Leeson and Peter Dunn to support local campaigners and NHS workers in east London in the mid-to late-1970s. These art projects, which pioneered closer collaboration between artists and political activists in the UK, are on show at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. They came in the wake of the first wave of cuts to the NHS. Initially carried out by Ted Heath’s Conservative government, these cuts deepened under Labour after a run on the pound forced James Callaghan’s government to take out a huge loan from the International Monetary Fund in 1976, which led to severe funding restrictions for public services.

This in turn caused the closure of many small community hospitals. Among those targeted was Bethnal Green hospital but the staff resisted. In 1977, they occupied the hospital, with doctors and nurses continuing to provide care for patients, which meant the local health authority was still obliged to pay staff salaries. Meanwhile, local residents and trade unions mobilised to save the hospital, and a member of the East London Trades Council approached Leeson and Dunn, who were then running film and video workshops for local residents, to make a video to highlight the campaign.

The artists soon became more involved, as the campaign committee recognised their commitment to the struggle. “We were there for all the marches and taking photos,” Leeson recalls. “So they asked us to make some posters for flyposting. We were looking to see how we could use our work to support social change. There wasn’t a strong visual tradition on the left. People would write, send out broadsheets. We knew the power of art. So we found this was a way we could put that and our skills to good use and confer that power on to people and issues that mattered.”

The pair also created exhibitions from the campaign materials in other hospitals where there were staff occupations: the Middlesex hospital and the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital in Bloomsbury. Dunn says: “They contained tips on what to watch out for in case your hospital is going to be closed. Like the fact that they [management] run down the laundry services, that the lifts stop working. So they say this hospital isn’t working, we need to close it.”

The language used then still has a lot of currency. Some of those posters could have been made today Juliet Desorgues, ICA curator

This combination of art and activism strongly influenced the aesthetic of their work. The posters drew inspiration from German artist John Heartfield’s anti-fascist and anti-Nazi photomontages and the Russian constructivists, particularly Alexander Rodchenko. Initially, the posters were text-heavy, but Leeson says they soon recognised that bold images and pithy captions could have greater impact. Among the most powerful is a poster headlined Don’t Mince Words, which shows the Bethnal Green hospital being pushed into the closed Poplar hospital, with money, rather than minced meat, emerging from the other side.

This aesthetic is even more evident in the artists’ follow-up work for the East London Health Project 1978-80 where they produced another series of posters in collaboration with the East London Trades Council to disseminate health information to the local population – from the impact of funding cuts to the higher incidence of mental illness in deprived areas.

One of the most striking, headlined Passing the Buck, which criticises pharmaceutical companies’ profits and motives, by featuring an elaborate palace of multi-coloured pills and syringes. Dunn recalls: “I took great pleasure in making the palace of pills. This was before Photoshop. A lot of friendly GPs gave me the pills. You’d never be able to do that now.”

Passing the Buck: ‘I took great pleasure in making the palace of pills.’ Photograph: None

Looking back on their work, Dunn comments: “You had the winter of discontent. You had the British National party out on the streets. You had insurrections in Bristol, Liverpool, Brixton. It was a situation in which you felt you had to take sides. You couldn’t just stand on the sidelines.”

The ICA exhibition, called The Things That Make You Sick, comes as the NHS is again struggling with deep funding cuts, most recently the revelation of secret plans to slash health spending in London, which will lengthen waiting times for operations and may see the closure of casualty and maternity units. Dunn, who joined the protests against the cuts to Lewisham hospital last year, says he sees parallels between his and Leeson’s work in the 70s and 80s and other recent political campaigns, such as gifs made by Momentum activists. “The spirit that they have reminded me of that time. It was like things are changing and we can make a difference.”

Juliette Desorgues, exhibition curator says: “There are echoes of the political global events that are happening today that we haven’t necessarily seen since the 70s. The graphic design feels so contemporary. The language that was used then still has a lot of currency. Whether it’s women’s health or cuts in the NHS. Some of those posters could have been made today. Society has moved on but not as much as you would expect.”

Dunn says he sees parallels between their work in the 70s and 80s and more recent political campaigns, such as GIFs made by Momentum activists. “The spirit that they have reminded me of that time where people believed they could make a difference.”Leeson and Dunn continue to work on socially engaged art projects. In the 2000s, Dunn devised a project called the Global Town Square in which local residents could share their ideas for local redevelopment and vote on what they wanted. Leeson is currently working in the Lea Valley with the Geezers, a group of senior men from Bow in east London, on ideas for renewable energy, such as tidal power.Although their art initially saw them labelled as sociologists and even social workers by some of their peers, the artists have no regrets at rejecting the more conventional route of selling work in galleries. Dunn says: “I come from a council estate in Liverpool. I was the first person to go to university. I didn’t know how to make art for the rich.”

Leeson says interest in their projects has grown over the past decade and she is writing a book called Art, Process, Change, to be published next year, which explores their way of collaborating with campaigners and communities. She says: “I didn’t want to make art for the rich. I’m not interested in people who know about art buying my work.”