Tolerance Posters

On August 25th, a Tolerance Show opened at the Konstantinovka industrial zone in Ukraine. This exhibition was part of TheMostFest|2.0, a multi-disciplinary event that also featured workshops, dance performances, and live music.

The venue was a formerly abandoned hanger, which has recently been activated as a space for cultural and social events as part of Metacity: East, a project by young Ukrainian architects, thinkers, and activists who seek to draw attention to abandoned industrial spaces via urban art interventions.

The festivals attracted between two and three thousand people. The posters were hung in five large squares on the side walls of the hangar, in addition to two posters on either side of the entrance. Unfortunately, because these exhibitions are largely installed by volunteers, a couple of the posters were hung-upside down or were printed larger than the boundaries of the page. However, this is just a consequence of grassroots organizing.

If you pay attention—this is esp…

The Tolerance Traveling Poster Show opened at Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, South Africa on July 16.  Constitution Hill is a famous prison site where Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and other notable activists were imprisoned for various periods of time.  It has since been refashioned as a public museum that retells the local history.

This Tolerance show was part of the celebrations for the 100-year anniversary of the birth of Nelson Mandela. On July 17, Barack Obama gave a speech at the nearby Ellis Park Arena on the topic of Tolerance.

Myself and all of the participating designers were honored to be able to show at such an important, historic site. This exhibition would not have been possible without the generous organizing effort of Ravi Naidoo and Design Indaba.


Below, you can see some press coverage that this exhibition received, from City Press, The Sunday Independent, and The Sunday Times.

Last month, the Tolerance Poster show opened at the Zayed University College of Arts and Creative Enterprises, Abu Dhabi. The exhibition is open in the Al Fonoun gallery on the university campus.

Because of limited space, they only showed a selection of 32 posters. However, the school is planning a more public outdoor exhibition in the fall, in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation. This upcoming exhibition will be an opportunity to showcase all the posters.

Special thanks to David Howarth, Paul Klok, and Tarek Atrissi for organizing this exhibition.

Last Friday, part of the Tolerance Traveling Poster show opened in Bucharest as part of Romanian Design Week 2018. The posters are presented in the hall leading up to the main event. Here's an excerpt from the press release for Romanian Design Week:

"Romanian Design Week, the most important multidisciplinary event in Romania, at its sixth edition, will be held in Bucharest between 18-27th of May. The RDW program will present the current development status of local design and creative industries: architecture, urbanism, interior design, graphic design, illustration, fashion design, object design or any other initiatives and projects that use creativity as a main resource."

This exhibition was made possible by the generous effort of Ovidiu Hrin and Denise Benmosché.

I'm very excited to share that last Thursday, Tolerance Posters opened at KZNSA Gallery in Durban, South Africa in partnership with Design Indaba.

The show was organized by Angela Shaw, the Creative Director at KZNSA Gallery. I've enclosed some photographs from the opening courtesy of Llwellyn Makhanya.

Below is a short news segment about the show from SABC Digital News South Africa. It features interviews with Angela Shaw and contributing designer Garth Walker.

Below are photographs of the Tolerance Poster Show at Designmonat Graz, Austria. The show will be officially open Saturday, May 5. This installation was made possible by the generous effort of Eberhard Schrempf.

Last week, the Tolerance Poster show opened at the library of the American University of Sharjah (AUS), UAE. The library is a high-traffic venue, receiving over 19,000 visitors per week. I am grateful to Kevin Badni, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Art and Design, and Riem Ibrahim, Assistant Professor of Art and Design for their efforts in organizing this show, which will run until the end of June. Unfortunately, due to space limitations, not all posters were able to be included.