A battered pan lid sits next to a crudely printed teacup, alongside other odds and ends that look more like the sort of stuff you'd pick up in a jumble sale than exhibits you'd expect to see at a national museum. Yet these humble bits and bobs, on show at the V&A in London, have helped to win rights, change laws and even topple governments.

The teacup, which is stamped with what looks at first glance like a shonky counterfeit Starbucks logo, actually bears the emblem of the Women's Social and Political Union – it was designed by Sylvia Pankhurst and deployed as a way of bringing the suffragette campaign into the genteel heart of Edwardian drawing rooms. Meanwhile, the misshapen lid was used on the streets of Buenos Aires in 2001, one of thousands of pots and pans furiously beaten in response to the Argentinian government freezing the bank accounts of 18 million people. In what has since been described as the first national revolt against neoliberal capitalism, this cacophony of kitchenware succeeded in forcing out four presidents in three weeks. In both cases, the story behind the artefacts of disobedience has rarely been told.

"We wanted to show the collective power these domestic objects can have when grabbed and repurposed with political intent," says Gavin Grindon, co-curator of Disobedient Objects, an exhibition that gathers together tools of protest from around the world. While shows of activist art are not uncommon, this is the first major exhibition to focus on the actual instruments of direct action. As co-curator Catherine Flood says, "It is design taken out of the hands of designers." As such, it has a refreshingly frank power, a collection of tools made or redeployed for specific – and often desperate – ends.

There are the tiny Solidarność pin badges, worn under the lapel by Polish trade unionists in the 1980s as a sign of solidarity, sitting next to DIY versions made from resistors ripped out of radios and worn, in turn, to show support for the pirate radio station Solidarity. These are displayed next to finely crafted dog tags designed by prisoners kept in solitary confinement in Louisiana; the tags are handmade by other prisoners and then sold to generate funds for the legal campaigns of those in solitary, and to raise international awareness of their plight.

Carrie Reichardt's Tiki Love Truck being driven through Manchester driven in protest against the death penalty. Photograph: V&A

At the other end of the scale are objects made to be noticed, from the mosaic-covered Tiki Love Truck, driven in protest against the death penalty. It was made to commemorate John Joe "Ash" Amador, who was executed by the state of Texas in 2007, and features his death mask on the front. Made by the British artist (or "craftivist") Carrie Reichardt, a friend of Amador's, for the 2007 Art Car Parade in Manchester, it is not the only vehicle on show here: there's also a four-wheeled, sound-blaring bicycle contraption made for the 2010 Hamburg climate camp.

But some of the most powerful exhibits are the simplest ones – things that engage with the more theatrical side of a demonstration and show how the balance of power on the street can be swung with just a bit of mischievous wit. In one corner, a cluster of gigantic inflatable cubes hangs above a line of placards, like metallic clouds. These are inflatable cobblestones, made by the Eclectic Electric Collective, and used in worker protests in Berlin and Barcelona in 2012, as a way to outwit the authorities.

"The police just don't know what to do with things like this," says Grindon. "Do they throw the inflatable back, in which case they're engaging in this weird performance? Do they try to bundle it into a van and arrest the cobblestone? Or do they try to attack it and deflate it?" Either way, as accompanying footage shows, they end up wrongfooted and humiliated, their authority brilliantly undermined by an ingenious reference to the traditional tool of the street protestor.

A similar tactic is embodied by another object, an orange felt hat: 10,000 of these were worn at a 1988 protest against communist rule in Poland by members of the Orange Alternative. Declared by its anarchic organisers to be the "Revolution of Dwarves", the demonstration resulted in the police having to round up and arrest thousands of people in dwarf hats – a farcical scene not lost on an image-hungry media. A statue of a dwarf, dedicated to the memory of the movement, stands today in the city of Wrocław, where the Orange Alternative has its origins.

A 'revolution of dwarves hat', as worn by 10,000 protesters at a 1988 march against communism in Poland. Photograph: V&A

The exhibition also brings together objects that show how movements have learned from each other around the world, from recent student protests against education reform using book covers emblazoned on shields (so riot police would be shown attacking books) to the ubiquity of "lock-on" devices. First used in Australia at demonstrations against forest destruction in 1989, lock-ons take the form of long metal tubes, into which protesters place their forearms. These allow them to shackle themselves round large, immovable objects such as trees, and can only be released using special skin-detecting steel saws; anything else will sever the limb. The lock-on design has since spread, thanks to such pamphlets as The Intercontinental Deluxe Guide to Blockading, to anti-road protests in the UK, anti-occupation activists in Palestine and anti-World Trade Organisation demos in Seattle. "It's probably the most successful object in the show," says Grindon, handing me a leaflet on how I can make my own – one of several tear-off how-to guides subversively included in the exhibition.

In all, some 99 objects are packed into the gallery, which brims with inspiration for aspiring activists. The show concludes with space for a 100th, though – left blank "for future disobedient objects".

• Blow-up cobblestones and tiki trucks: defiant protest designs – in pictures

• Disobedient Objects is at the V&A, London (020-7942 2000), from 26 July until 1 February 2015 and at the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences in Sydney until 14 February 2016