My long-standing collaboration with Memefest continues as I was asked by Oliver Vodeb to create the visuals for this year’s festival on the very timely theme of Debt. We decided to take a poetic, slightly ambiguous approach, with many subtle references, reflecting our complex relationship (and resistance) to debt.

The critical text that grounds the festival is excerpted from David Graeber’s excellent book Debt: The First 5000 Years. From the call for submissions:

DEBT IS EVERYWHERE.
It shapes our lives and defines our world.
Debt takes power from the people and places it in the hands of bankers and experts.
It wasn’t always this way.
Can we imagine a different relationship to debt?

The dark overtones in the imagery are obvious, these are certainly dark times for many of us, but there is also always a hint of light. The swarm of birds can be read in multiple ways, as people rising up collectively against the bankers, as a metaphor for network-based models of resistance, or more ominously as the gathering storm that will accompany the financial crisis as it deepens.

The images of the flock of starlings were taken from this beautiful video, There are no others, There is only us, by director Marc Silver.

Memefest is now accepting submissions in three categories; critical writing, visual communication practice and beyond… I will once again be acting as a curator in the visual communication category. The deadline for submissions is May 20th. Check out the festival introduction and submit your work here.