Taking a Stance

In July 2019, we were invited by the Metropolitan Organization of Museums of Visual Arts of Thes- saloniki – MOMus to take part in a restricted contest for the visual identity of the 7th Contemporary Art Biennale (held September 2019- February 2020). Biennale’s theme was Taking a Stance. Our proposal was rejected.

Our proposal aimed to integrate biennale’s visual identity into its curatorial procedures. The proposal attempted to be part of the Biennale’s constitutional map -a step beyond a mere communication of its actions- and furthermore to act as a parallel operation, within the city’s grid, that will express and support the event’s curatorial theme.

The meaning of Stance as a pause for reflection, but at the same time as a stand of engage- ment and action, led us to think of the event’s visual identity as a dual visual system, as a dynamic and complementary dipole. We proposed a complementary communication system, that signifies the content of the Biennale through the following theoretical scheme: pause and complicity.

On the one hand, the silence, the pause, the reflection expressed through the empty space of the graphic surface. The dominion of silence, where the designer gives space to the reader, to the viewer. A visual vacuum, a breath into the visual complexity of urban space. The information is compressed at the edges to give space for the pause.

White as silence.

On the other hand, making a stand, an engagement. Silence is transformed into action, the graphic surface transforms into a vast field for signs and contexts. The empty space now occupies a system of symbols that organize a new code.

Black as engagement.

Driven by the curatorial team’s umbrella term Overview Effect, we created a system of graphic elements that function as a visual code, as symbols that are seeking to illustrate politics surrounding the world of contemporary art -a strong mater aroused by biennale- and additionally to develop a recognizable visual system.

the figure = the gaze
earth’s exploded view = analysis and critical withdrawal arrow = involvement, engagement, action