As part of Qpirg’s Study in Action series, I’ll be participating in a workshop/conversation with Vincent Tao on the political role of design, specifically looking at the practice of design from a (materialist) socialist perspective. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to give form to some of the ideas that have been bouncing around my head for a while.
Cheap Wig at Brasserie Beaubien on NYE 2014
It might be a little late, but I’d like to wish a happy new year, and express heartfelt thanks, to all LOKI’s clients, collaborators and friends.
2014 was a big year, marking the shift to a studio framework, which has been exciting and challenging to say the least. We launched some great projects, including the latest issue of Four Minutes to Midnight, Thien’s Intimate Distance Zine and the Precari-Tee. 2014 also took us to Detroit for the Allied Media Conference, and to Melbourne, Australia to collaborate with Memefest. Both these events were truly transformative experiences for me, working at the intersection of design, art, critical theory, and on the ground communications activism. I’ve met so many amazing people, doing such great work. Here’s to much more of this in 2015.
The new year has already seen some heavy tragedy, with the attack on Charlie Hebdo grabbing news headlines worldwide. My reaction to this, and especially the (racist) recuperation of it, is complex, and this post isn’t the place to break it down right now. But it does highlight one important thing for me, as a signpost for my practice in the new year.
Graphic design plays such a significant role in the definition of a community’s identity, internally setting parameters for how people (self)identify, who is included/excluded, and how it is externally represented and positioned within society as a whole. This is a fiercely contested site. And this is where I, and the studio, need to be. Especially as a person of colour.
As seen above, I spent NYE in a small bar, rocking out to punk rock. Love and rage my friends, love and rage…
Bowl full of Memefest badges from the last few years.
It feels next to impossible to synthesize the experience that was this year’s Memefest at this point, however it seems important to provide at least a cursory overview of what happened in Melbourne a few weeks back, while it’s still fresh in my memory. It was an intense and deeply transformative experience for me, and I hope the following words and images might do it a bit of justice.
Artist Alana Hunt, Sam Burch from the Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy, and Oliver Vodeb of Memefest opening the symposium, articulating the themes of Radical Intimacies and Decolonization.
The event kicked off at Swinburne University with 3 days of “extra-disciplinary” symposium presentations on design, media, art and activism. Over 30 presentations from local and international participants took place, with an incredible diversity of subject matter, between theory and practice, from the personal to the political.
Two days ago, I arrived in Melbourne, Australia, after an insane 30-hours of travel, to the generous hospitality of Oliver Vodeb of Memefest and his lovely family. We’re now at Swinburne University setting up for the extradisciplinary symposium/workshop/direct action that starts tomorrow, tied to this year’s theme of Radical Intimacies. It’s quite hard to get a handle on the fact that I’m now halfway across the world, having conversations about radical design practice with Oliver again, conversations that we’re continuing from the last time we met up in the Netherlands almost 4 years ago. Plus ça change…
I’m very honoured to be here, presenting amongst an impressive international crew of communications experts, activists, and artists. I’m particularly excited to be working with Memefest and members of BASE (the Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign embassy), and look forward to learning about the aboriginal context of resistance here. BASE was instrumental in organising against the G20 summit in Brisbane last week, and I’m hoping to be able to lend my skills to their struggle, and will certainly be bringing some powerful knowledge back home.
My presentation will address ideas around material culture and resistance, with a particular focus on the Quebec Student Strike of 2012. It feels good to be able to share knowledge drawn from our local movements and moments of social upheaval, and I hope it will be relevant here, and spark an interesting dialogue. I’m also happy that I had the opportunity to meet up with Decolonizing Street Art before leaving Montreal, and that I managed to bring some amnazing gifts from them to communities here.
Everyone I’ve met so far has been fantastic. It’s been great to reconnect with Tom Liacas, a culture jamming collaborator from way back in the day (circa. 2001). I’ll be here for another 8-days, and will try to keep the blog updated, or at the very least, I’ll be posting frequently on LOKI’s facebook page.
PS. Unlike the G20 leaders, I have yet to find any koalas. Those bastards always take everything first…
After several months of reflection, strategy and design, I’m proud to launch LOKI as an independent design studio resolutely focused on graphic design and social change work. The (re)launch includes an overhaul of our visual identity, a new website to showcase our portfolio of work, and the clarification of our positioning and purpose.
Bringing together over a decade of work split between the commercial, cultural and community spheres, the formation of LOKI marks a renewed and unified commitment to the creation of images, objects, and experiences that empower, engage and oppose. Graphic design aligned with movements, organizations and individuals that contribute to positive social change.
The launch also marks LOKI’s establishment within a great new office space in the Mile End, shared with Studio Byebye Bambi, JLL Photography and Pauline Loctin. If you’re in the neighbourhood, please feel free to come by for a visit some time!
Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics 2: Illustrated by Google, Marie-Noelle Hebert
I’m happy to announce that I’ve recently brought on Marie-Noelle Hebert as a design intern at the studio. Marie-Noelle is a recent graduate of the Master’s of Design at York University, and completed her undergraduate degree at Concordia University, where I was lucky to have her as a student in my Culture of Images class.
Marie-Noelle brings a shared critical perspective of graphic design alongside a sophisticated editorial and typographic approach that will enrich the work we are doing.
This year’s Memefest deals with a theme very close to my heart, and one that has been on my mind a lot lately; the abject failure of dialogue (or as Memefest founder Oliver Vodeb puts it, “what if dialogue is fucked?”.
Ever since I published my Graduate Certificate thesis back in 2002, through the work I do with Four Minutes to Midnight, and in how I’ve engaged with my studio practice, a dialogic approach has always been central to my work and belief system. It’s something I’ve consistently argued for as a model for social change work and as a visual design approach.
Within this span of time we have seen the reification of social media in our lives, identity/branding practices redefined as conversations and storytelling, connectivity and crowd-sourcing. On the flipside, within our social movements, we’ve witnessed the popularity and prevalence of Occupy-style organising (GAs, working groups, consensus, “non-violence”). Oftentimes, “dialogue” is expressed as an end goal in itself. Meanwhile it can be easily argued that the (western) psyche is more fragmented than ever, isolated and compartmentalised through all this dialogue, and genuine social solidarity seems harder and harder to build across movements. Not to mention the gross failures of dialogue at the geo-political level. Part of me would like to think, it is nothing more than a process of general commodification (because that’s enough to deal with!), but what if it’s something deeper, something intrinsic. Yes, what if dialogue is fucked? Where does that leave us?
The festival/friendly competition is open to all (students and non-students), with several categories for submissions: Visual Communication, Critical Writing, and Participatory Art (Beyond…). I will be curating/judging the Visual Communications category this year, and am really looking forward to seeing all the work submitted.
The deadline for submissions is September 20th! Learn more and submit your work here.
Please join us this Thursday, June 12th at librairie Formats for the official Montreal launch of Issue 13 of Four Minutes to Midnight. Though we recently held an intimate launch party amongst friends during the Howl Arts Festival, I’m excited to be partnering up with Formats for this, and to introduce the project to their network of artist-run centres.
In conversation with John last night, it struck me again that we’ve been doing this for ten long years, from London and Montreal, from Brixton and Mile End. Over that time we’ve promoted and published an astonishing collection of artists, writers, musicians. It’s been quite a journey, and there are far too many people to thank, but I think the best way is to just keep doing what we’re doing, and getting it out there the best we can. Or someone can bring us a cake to share…
I’m very excited to announce that I will be participating in the upcoming 16th edition of the Allied Media Conference in Detroit this summer. It’s an event that I’ve heard a lot of great things about, but haven’t had the opportunity to participate in until now. In their own words:
“The AMC is a collaborative laboratory of media-based organizing strategies for transforming our world. The AMC is a network of networks – social justice organizers, community technologists, transformative artists, educators, entrepreneurs, and many others — all using media in innovative ways.”
On the invitation of Toronto-based designer and community organiser Una Lee, I’ll be hosting a session entitled Designing Cultures of Resistance as part of the Future Design Lab. Though, I’m still working out all the details, what I want to address with participants is the ways in which (graphic) design can contribute to community building, beyond its role as a direct communications tool. In other words, how does design operate in affective and strategic ways to build solidarity within and between communities of resistance?
I’ll be writing more about the AMC, and my participation within it, soon. But for now, I wanted to humbly ask for a little grassroots support in order to get me and our crew of artist/activists from Montreal to Detroit. The Future Design Lab has set up a simple fundraising page, please check it out, and if you can, spare a little change for social change.
Donate to the Future Design Lab.
