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Political posters with critical content on advertising space
in the public have always had a great potential of irritating
people. At first their form and presentation raise expectations
of a visualization addressing well-being and lifestyle. Yet
one quickly realizes that one`s attention has been directed
to a critical message that was perhaps hard to decipher at
a first glance. By means of breaking conventional patterns
of perception they aim at raising attention. The temporary
poster installation "Works Against Racism", which
was conceived by the activist Daniela Koweindl and the artist
Martin Krenn, made use of this effect. So in July 2005 fourteen
different poster themes developed by five individual artists
- or groups of artists - covered advertising columns,
CLP showcases and billboards in the area of numerous tramway
stops along the Viennese D line. It had originally been planned
to integrate the advertising space on and inside the tramway
trains but in the course of negotiations with Wiener Verkehrsbetriebe
[Vienna Transport] it turned out that this project could not
be put into effect.
What was picked up as the central theme were the modes of
action of totally everyday and present-day forms of racism
as well as forms of resistance against them. "Works Against
Racism" acted as a visible platform, where different
networks against racism and anti-Semitism could converge and
attract public attention. With a poster series with anti-racist
postulations which had been conceived together with Klub Zwei
(Simone Bader and Jo Schmeiser), the Black Women`s Community
called attention to the political and socio-economical situation
of black women in Austria. Petja Dimitrova also broached the
issue of the situation of female migrants in Austria, whose
participation in the Austrian society is for the most part
reduced to gastronomy and folklore.
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Anna Kowalska even moved a step further and analyzed being
white as some kind of ideological club membership which is
constituted by demarcation from the "other" yet
can be questioned and quit at any time. In the first part
of their 20-part poster series "Kolaric" Ljubomir
Bratic and Richard Ferkl referred to the history of racism
and anti-racism linked to this name since the nineteen seventies
and - with questions concerning their grandparents -
they at the same time picked up the time of National Socialism
as a central theme. Klub Zwei (Simone Bader and Jo Schmeiser)
showed a poster piece dealing with anti-Semitism in Vienna
during the Third Reich. Martin Krenn`s piece "Denkmal
der ,Arisierung" [Monument of Aryanisation] deals with
the repression and obfuscation of disagreeable historical
facts and - taking the Giant Wheel as an example -
with the phenomenon of the sluggishness with regard to the
restitution of stolen items which was so characteristic for
post-Nazi Austria.
The project "Works Against Racism" aimed at confronting
the normality of everyday racism at a favoured location, as
Luisa Ziaja wrote in the small catalogue of the same tile,
which can still be ordered per email at mail@arbeitengegenrassismen.net.
aw
transl. ol
www.arbeitengegenrassismen.net
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