Thursday 16 October 2008
"Tommorrows truth"
This image was part of Barnbrook's 'Tomorrow's Truth' exhibition at the Seoul Arts Centre in 2004. The Mickey Mouse hybrid is Kim Jong-il, son of Kim il-Sung who assumed dictatorial control over North Korea in 1948. Barnbrook, on the symbolic link between Disneyland and North Korea explains, "Both are 'contained realities'. Everything is thought out, controlled- your reality is changed when you're inside both. Er... they also both cost a fortune to get into."
I remember him saying this when he was giving a lecture.
What do you wear to work ?
"I hate people's obsession with brands so I usually just wear anonymous clothes, which I know have not been made under sweatshop conditions. Today, for instance, I’m wearing one of my own t-shirts which says, 'only jerks wear logos"
"Stay Away from Designer"
A major recurring theme of Barnbrook's graphic design is political work and work with a social conscience. He describes as a major influence to his work 'an inner anger which is a response to all the unfairness that is in this world'. He has stated his ambition to use 'design as a weapon forocial change' As such he was a signatory to the First things First 2000 manifesto, in which graphic designers, conscious of the power that the message that they craft can have in the mass-media influenced world, pledged to put their skills to worthwhile use' and address the 'unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises' that they saw in the world. This former sentiment is expressed in part by his 2001 artwork Designers, stay away from corporations that want you to lie for them, a quote from Tibor Kalman , which took the form of a large-format advertising billboard and was first displayed in Las Vegas during a