OPEN CALL FOR ARTISTS!
03.02.2010. - 03.05.2010.
This year A3.Format group will start a four publications campaign "Citizens handbook: Culture of Complaint" as a specific guidebook for a civil society, which will serve as a concise manual for promotion of human rights and liberal values in everyday life for the citizens of Western Balkan (former Yugoslavia).
Assignment for the public competition regarding the ECO ISSUE Vol:05 will be pattern, in other words creation of the best visual pattern that deals with problems of ecology, mass consumption, environmental protection and other problems regarding the man-nature relation. Each page of the publication will have a special cut-in handle, thus bearing a visual resemblance to the plastic bag, although your patterns will altogether form a specific paper bag collection. This way we will promote bags that are much easier to recycle and promote young talents and this type of design which is still to be embraced by our societies. At the very end A3.Format will present slogans for each of your "bags", motivational messages that will work as a campaign for positive consumer habits and healthier attitude towards nature and environment… more important – let's not drown in the ocean of plastic bags.
First publication from the "Citizens handbook" series will be ECO ISSUE Vol:05, an environmental issue dealing with the relations between mass consumerism and devastation of our ecosystem. The best 30 works will be featured in our publication while the large number of rest works will be presented at the exhibition at Heinrich Böll Foundation, Berlin in mid 2010. Statistics show that within the 10 most eco-friendly cities in Europe there is not a single one from the East Europe, that is to say post-socialist countries. That is why we recognized the environment awareness as one of the topics for "Citizens handbook: Culture of Complaint". Serbia produces around one and a half billion plastic bags daily, and there is between five and seven millions in use every day. It is a well-known fact that plastic bags stand as a very symbol of the consumerist way of life. Their biodegradation cycle can take up to 500 years. Plastic bags are everywhere – in our hands, in our car trunks, around our necks, on the trees, they stand as a basic medium of mass-consumption which, in the end, becomes the heavy contaminator. We believe that changes in our lifestyle have to happen in our heads first, preceding the legislative acts of our countries. That is why we try to raise awareness of the entire Balkans population on the environmental issue.
