small local slow
Using always the same sentences advertising is playing a role not to be underestimated in shaping children, individuals and the society. Advertising forms the memory, cultual and social memory and recreates history and morality. Plainly put advertising says:
Buy whatever you want and consume! There is nothing more important other than personal pleasures. You can use any way to reach the thing you want to buy!Don’t be stupid!
Want more, all the time!
Nature has been sending serious signs of its being about to die for some time, while we are speeding up the process with great efforts. The so-called developed countries take the lead in this delirium, as the incident of BP in the Gulf of Mexico, Nigeria, the production of petrol of the tar sands in Alberta Canada, the industry of hybrid seeds led by the Netherlands and the nuclear armament…
We have to find and develop new aspects, alternative life styles and energies. Maybe, constantly we should want to consume less.
Peace in societies and among social groups seems not be established. There is even more evidence about increasing violence. Advertising is significantly responsible for creating a mad consumption culture feasting on the desertification impact on environment, culture and the growing injustice and inequality.
This consumption culture uniformizes the individuals under the cover of claiming uniqueness and originality for everybody. It erases the cultural and ecological environments pretending to save them. It is obscuring concepts and everyday language, such as imposing illogical mottos as: “Becoming dirty is beautiful.” (Slogan for detergent) After mixing mud, ink or something else into the drinking water – reconsider this motto.
Getting dirty is beautiful!
The voice of the subaltern is fading, becoming inaudible. Their rightsare constantly violated and it even becomes normality. There are serious obstacles for collective organization, using mother tongues, living sexual preferences and labor rights. And there is a society becoming used to all those inequalities. The words for “solidarity”, “sharing”, “organizing” are forgotten.
Contra supposes ecological balance and diversity, the rights and respect for the Other, peace and civilization as primary conditions. Contra is not the main actor or subject of NGOs or social responsibility projects but a educational process where some of the discussed topics are dealt with. Naturally the civil area is getting dirty like the other ones. Maybe even worse than some main areas.
Maybe: getting dirty is not beautiful!
We named posters, logos, web-sites, radio spots and generally less than 1 minutes anti-adsspots generally used in mass mediaContra. This kind of work proposes to share and to reduce consumption. Not the most beautiful, the strongest, the biggest but on the contrary the ones left behind, the disadvantaged becomes the subject of those campaigns and designs. They promote peace and solidarity.
We are a team, including artists, university instructors, students, professionals and activists from the field using intensively this propaganda format for more than 20 years and the last ten years at Bilgi University. We have been making spots, web-sites and poster designs on topics like: smoking addiction, accidental ingestion of liquids with corrosive ingredients, child health, children living and working on the streets, earthquake, violence against women, violence in the sports, violence in football, traffic rules, sea pollution, the importance of drinking water, city and noise, erosion, deforestation, schizophrenia,Mediterranean Monk Seals, a world without anti personal mines and wars, the rights of playing for children, the protection of living spaces of Caretta Caretta turtles, awareness about sexual abuse of children and similar social and environmental themes. In this process, we produced promotional spots for art and cultural institutions, events and topics such as Istanbul International Short Film Days, Bilgi University International Dance Films Festival, Assos Performance Arts Festival, Bilgi University Press, Mentalklinik Game Project, Karsi Sanat, Ankara International Film Festival, International Flying Broom Film Festival.
You can join us, if you really care about the ecological, ethical and social problems and understand this process not just as “a duty as a good person”, “a social responsibility” or “a mission”and “a humanitarian debt”, but being excited and touched by the process of creation concerning a real problem. There is work for everybody: researching and defining the problem, creating the text, writing the script, create communication, photographing, printing, creating web-sites…
The spots were shown (have been shown) nearly on all the national channels and many local TV stations; in the international arena, Rede Minas TV in Bela Horisonte in Brazil, festivals and universities in Italy, France, Syria, Morocco and Spain and other various countries. Since 2008, the Italian Ministry of Education has been using our campaign “Mediterranean is dying” for educational material in schools. NTV and CNBC-e channels have been using our spots about antismoking and drug addiction for the last 10 years. TRT showed our Violence in Football spots again and again. İz TV and Hayat TV have been using almost all of the campaigns. Writing down all the local channels using the campaigns would almost be impossible.
Most of the time, the topics were determined by the needs of certain situations. The objectives are a more peaceful and equal world and with equal sharing. We transferred all rights to the public, the rightful owner.
contra 