Lublin‘s Studio for Socially Engaged Art, led by Szymon Pietrasiewicz (see At War With the Past) designed a social tolerance campaign using hand-drawn images printed on city bus tickets. These pictures presented Jews, Roma and gays as being accepted by soccer fans of the local football club, Motor Lublin. (More…)
Blame the duration. Now in its eleventh year, the war in Afghanistan has assumed an aura of permanence. Like the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it grinds on, without any endpoint in sight. American declarations about drawing down its troops look good in the newspaper. However, nobody takes them seriously anymore. (More…)
Burning rivers, blood-soaked seal fur, birds coated in oil and now beachside amusement parks standing forlornly in the surf: the environmental movement has long had a gift for distilling complex problems into memorable images. The traditional Left, by contrast, has struggled to find those proverbial pictures worth a thousand words to communicate its most crucial arguments. (More…)
This sticker, the first in a series from the German Left Party’s youth outreach campaign that Souciant will be featuring in the weeks to come, provides a biting critique of the career opportunities —The Clash’s song by that name is brought to mind — in Germany’s army, the Bundeswehr. Even as it mobilizes nostalgia for its more egalitarian past: (More…)
The Eurozone crisis needs a counterculture. Unable to claim a youth genre for its repertoire, at best, it has been represented by a resurgence of interest in punk. Whether it be mohawk hairstyles for women, studded leather boots from Milan, or Berlin goth-punk groups like Tanzkommando Untergang, a signature is indeed emerging. It’s reach, however, is limited. Surely, there is something with a wider appeal. (More…)
At first glance, the flyer might have struck the jaded flâneur as parody. Instead of the crusty punks and hippies that usually festoon images of protest in Berlin, a bunch of white-hairs hold a large banner with the classic squatter’s slogan “This house is occupied.” (More…)
Stanislav Markelov, lawyer and journalist for the liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and coworker Anastasia Baburova, anarchist and political activist, were murdered in 2009 in the centre of Moscow by killers believed by many to be Russian ultra-nationalists. (More…)
Few chains inspire the kind of attachment that FNAC does. Staffed by salespeople with PHD-equivalent educations in the arts and technology, for the last two decades, the French retailer has been the single most influential store of its kind in Europe. Whether it’s obscure Glasgow wonky LPs, limited edition Pasolini DVDs, or imported American DJ gear, you’ll find it there. (More…)
They call it “poverty porn.” Published in The Guardian, an August 14th feature discloses the results of an Advertising Standards Authority survey, warning British charities against using severe imagery in adverts intended to highlight homelessness. Accordingly, using photos of compromised persons constitutes “shock tactics” that risk “exploiting” their subjects, and putting off the public. (More…)
The Syrian civil war has caused an explosion of political graffiti, cartoons, and flyers in the country’s many Diasporas. The following examples, which contain many Syrian slang words, were photographed in Berlin last month. They give an impression of increased bitterness and radicalization directed against an autocrat who, little over a year ago, was said to be unaffected by the Arab Spring. (More…)
For a world without borders and jails.
As a generation that only knows the domination of capital, every day we roam the landscapes of a world that constantly declares its own justification. While the ubiquity of the commodity seems to repress poverty (as lack of the means of survival,) misery spreads (as dispossession of our dreams.) (More…)