Agitators of Awareness

The exhibition at the Central de Diseño de Matadero wants to make people realize that graphic design is more than just a product generator or an excuse to “make things prettier”.

After these long years of crisis that have wiped out a decent part of the middle class and being aware of the ever-increasing gap between the rich and poor, the impression is given that there are too many things not going well.

Do we as citizens know for sure that the world, and our country in particular, is being, as illustrator Aleix Saló would say, increasingly governed by “simiocrats” (apes)? What have we done differently from others? We would believe ourselves to be the center of the world and we are barely even at the end of the tunnel. So now what?

"Agitators Of Awareness. Compromising Graphics", Central de Diseño de Matadero

Do we have reasons? Is our outrage justified? Too many questions without answers and an infinite number of problems to solve: the public deficit, the housing bubble that exploded, the lack of confidence in the market, the ever-growing unemployment rate, the national welfare budget cuts… all that being added to our pile of problems inherited since birth, drawing a pathetic caricature of our weaknesses. Wars that won’t end and others beginning: Afghanistan, Syria, the African Sahel, and up to twenty-some countries with still-active conflicts. A “Global Village”, sure, but with the increasing continuum of differences between the north and south, rich and poor countries, allowing for constant migration and in many cases complete culture shock. The incessant destruction of natural resources and the growth of that which we call the “ecological footprint”, the deforestation of the Amazon, the depletion of water reserves, the desertification and degradation of natural habitats, the increase in difficulties eliminating detritus such as the Plastic Soup in the Pacific, and on the other hand the nearly complete absence of implication of developed and developing governments to do anything to curb it. Hunger, child soldiers, ablation, homophobia, the slums… do we have reason enough?

This exhibition is a sample of design for political and social activism, whose sole purpose is to make people realize that graphic design is more than just a product generator or an excuse to “make things prettier”. Though at the same time we recognize this reality does not prove to be easily changeable, since for the majority of our post-modern society that has been its only function, or at least its main one. An idea has traditionally been reinforced, especially so since the 80s, that the whole object of “design” is a luxurious and somewhat elitist product, and less often to associate it with that which contributes value added beyond its merely aesthetic role.

In the images shown there is a very interesting aspect to analyze, and it is that each one of them is presented in a challengingly neutral, or “apolitical”, way, thus its graphic force and discourse comes right from that, from its capacity to evoke and encourage people to think and, if possible, act.