By Gustavo A. Maranges on December 21, 2021
graphic courtesy: UTOPIX
When we think about politics, the first thing that often comes to our minds is economy, geopolitics, or voters. However, we sometimes forget to think first in communications or images. These two factors have moved to the core of any political or social movement since experiences have shown that ideas are sterile and lifeless if we are not able to communicate them properly and spread them as far as possible.
The fast development of internet connectivity all around the world made it possible to connect with large audiences in a matter of seconds. The problem now is that there are too many ideas targeting the same public that only the most attractive ones get and maintains the audience’s attention. Advertising and propaganda have become huge industries backed primarily by big corporate interests whose best practices and tools are not affordable to small organizations. So before any little initiative would ever grow, no matter how signifigant, it would have to be creative enough, and that’s something that UTOPIX team has understood perfectly.
Officially, UTOPIX has been running for two years, but some of its founders have been working with social movements and fostering collaborations among them for almost ten years. Today, they are over 60 collaborators (designers, journalists, researchers, illustrators, and informatics), who have joined efforts to make a difference in the communicational world. Based on anticapitalism and counterhegemonic ideas, UTOPIX offers an alternative way to communicate third world and social movement’s ideas through a powerful visual speech, having always in mind that a good image is worth a thousand words.
Their last expo opened to the public on December 18th in Caracas, Venezuela, as part of the 24th anniversary of the Museum of the Stamp and Design (MEDI). It is a perfect example of how to use creativity and art to re-vindicate Latin America history, which is probably our most powerful weapon in the fight for sovereignty.
We had the opportunity to interview Kael Abello, one of UTOPIX’s founders, about the expo and UTOPIX’s work in general.
Gustavo: Kael, before asking you something about the expo, you mentioned that part of UTOPIX team works from United States’ prisons?
Kael: Yes, that’s true. We have a very productive exchange with an organization called Imprisoned Abolitionist Collective (IAC). We often illustrate some of their articles, transforming their feelings and ideas into pictures. However, we have grown together, and now, they also send us real pieces of art from US prisons, which we are delighted to spread and reproduce because many of them involve a strong revolutionary meaning, not only for the art but also for the struggle of social movements. The world and the United States need to know that, and we are glad to help them pave the way.
Gustavo: I think that the revolution, understood as change for the better, is a permanent idea in UTOPIX work; how is that reflected in your last expo?
Kael: The expo is revolutionary from the beginning, not only because of its content but for the way it was thought. The title “Memory and Struggle” is also very suggestive, especially in these times when our roots are under attack aiming to erase them, since those examples and history is our best tool to build a more equitable system.
The expo is structured upon six main axis:
1- Resistance: Indigenous People’s struggles
2- Homeland: National liberation struggles
3- Land: Peasants’ struggles
4- Women: Struggles for equality
5- Work: Unionist and worker’s struggles
6- Utopia: Peoples in power
We tried to be exhaustive and concrete at the same time since we have plenty of examples worthy of being in this expo, so we chose them in a way that nobody would be excluded. For that reason, we also invited over 30 artists from eight countries to take part in this particular project.
The expo allows visitors to travel through our historic struggles following a timeline base or a specific topic, so it is a bi-dimensional review. You can choose to see the development of each axis from the colony to the recent past or to make radiography of a specific period and analyze the status of the different struggles at that time. We also wanted to go even further and we have added some QR codes across the expo to update with last-minute information about the current status of the political and social struggles in the region; so it could be instructive somehow.
In this expo, we gathered some of the best pieces we have made during these past two years, the designs we used for our 2022 calendar, and 24 posters, which referred to the different characters of our social and political struggles throughout history. All this merges with some other samples from the museum to transmit as much information and feelings as possible to make the experience complete and memorable.
The 24 posters specially designed for this occasion remind us that everything we have achieved so far in Latin America, we owe to ourselves, the people. It is fundamental to tell our history through a collective narrative, letting aside personality-centered approaches. We are the main characters in our history. Of course, leadership is important, but the traditional discourse that once a leader passes away everything is lost, it’s wrong. Therefore, we have to fight against this idea that reduces entire movements to a person. It makes us weak, and our force is in the collectiveness, the diversity, and the union.
This last pillar was the final idea of “Memory and Struggle”. Every piece of the exposition was linked to the next in time by a color line. In the end, all the lines drew a Latin America map on the floor of the room, which is a beautiful way to represent what our continent is made of.
Gustavo: This is a wonderful experience for those who visit the expo. How does has the public received it? And is there any chance to make a virtual visit?
The opening was impressive. A lot of people came, almost 100, which is remarkable given the capacity of the room and the COVID-19 situation. I think that those who went enjoyed the visit, even Venezuela’s Culture Minister Ernesto Villegas and the President of the National Museum Foundation Clemente Martinez attended and made good comments on the event.
Regarding the possibility of virtualizing the expo, it is something we had in mind since the beginning, and we are working on it. So, we expect it to be ready by late January or February.
After the opening session, we also wanted to interview one of the artists taking part in this event to know the experience from another point of view. That’s why we contacted Kalia Venereo, a Cuban designer, who has been working closely together with UTOPIX.
Gustavo: Kalia, what moved you to collaborate with UTOPIX, and specifically in this expo?
Kalia: Working with UTOPIX is really motivating because they intend to make visible the regional struggles by transforming them into visual communication pieces, taking into account a wide range of artistic visions from different countries. That also makes UTOPIX a singular and very strong project. Taking part in something like this makes me feel proud. This expo, in particular, is very well structured and balanced in all their aspects, from the participants to the historical span.
Gustavo: Based on your experience, how useful or necessary is the art in the political transformation process of Latin America societies?
Kalia: Art and culture have always accompanied people’s struggles, as well as design and illustration. In the current digital context, visual communication is there all the time. Therefore, the design is a perfect tool for translating ideas into images. We have to be speakers of people’s struggles and demands, and it also has the mission of immortalizing our visual history, to serve as a reference for the new generations.
Gustavo: In the particular case of Cuba, how is this art-politics relation?
Kalia: Thinking about my sector, posters from the first decades of the Revolution are an example of how it worked. You can study the construction of a new Cuban society by looking at the posters that accompanied the transformation process. When there was not television everywhere in Cuba, the posters got to the furthest places to announce the good news; when the literacy campaign had not benefitted everyone, posters informed the people about things they need to know.
But unfortunately, that link has suffered throughout the years. Nowadays, there is not much involvement between politics and art or design, and both sides are responsible for it. They are not that close anymore, and that is serious. Therefore, we as a country have to renew ideas, concepts and refresh our codes, both personal and artistic ones to be more useful to one another.
Projects like UTOPIX should have more room in our strategies to spread our ideas and to connect with people, mostly for young people, who are always attracted by good quality visual products. The development of UTOPIX is an encouraging project that needs to expand to challenge the corporate hegemony in the battle of ideas and for truth. Through its work and this expo, UTOPIX has shown us that it is possible to approach history and traditions in a modern way. Not everything that is old has to be treated in an old-fashioned way.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English