TAM-TAM Institute for Visual Culture

Established in 2018, the TAM-TAM Institute for Visual Culture continues the activities of the company TAM-TAM, which already for 30 years has been developing the poster medium as a means of communicating in the public space. The institute encourages creativity and excellence in designing poster arts through several activities and initiatives of national importance. It aims to become a reference point for all individuals, institutions and events who deal with posters. Well known for its international poster design competition Plaktivat, TAM-TAM Institute nowadays runs three street galleries in Ljubljana, Kranj and Maribor, offering visible exhibition space to young artists and designers and bringing their creative works closer to public. With other actions and activities, the institute calls to action and exposes current social issues, sometimes bringing the solution closer as well.

Plaktivat

Giving importance to the city poster as an independent medium with its own rules about the content, format and layout, a medium that addresses the public, TAM-TAM took responsibility for the message they send out through their advertising space and introduced the first Plaktivat in 2014, with a call for creative solutions on brain drain. Since 2017, Plaktivat is open to designers abroad, inviting both professionals and amateurs, but most importantly, the works of the Plaktivat ever since reflect the society, shine a light to current social-political issues and call to solidarity, tolerance, democracy, activity and empathy. Themes of past editions include Solidarity, the Crisis of the Media, NO EXCUSE for domestic abuse, with helpline numbers visibly incorporated in a poster and Let books sweep you away, on how to improve reading habits. Previous themes have addressed peer violence, hate speech migrations, among others. The winning entries of the first Plaktivat already received the SOF Award. Altogether, Plaktivat posters or campaigns have been awarded several times at the Slovenian Advertising Festival (SOF) and have received numerous Brumen Awards.

Publications

Printed in 2018, the catalogue City Poster presents a collection of writings from thirteen authors (architects, urbanists, sociologists, artists), expressing their thoughts about the (city) poster and its role in a public space; what it is, what it means for a city and how it is going to develop in the future. The publication is a record of the contemporary situation, and at the same time encourages a public debate about the benefits of responsible management of posters in the public space, imposing consequences when this is not provided.

At the end of 2019, TAM-TAM Institute completed its collection with the publication Plaktivat – Posters that change society. This book edition of contemporary poster production offers fresh insight into socially-engaged posters in Slovenia. It encompasses a review of the winners and finalists of the Plaktivat competitions from 2014 to 2019 and their creative thoughts or solutions to the burning social themes in a poster format – 1445 posters altogether! The issue was accompanied by an exhibition at the Municipality of Ljubljana.

Projects

TAM-TAM Institute inexhaustibly surprises us with new projects, exhibitions and events, so the best way not to miss one is to follow its channels. Here only a few of the most intriguing ones are listed.

Cities for Pedestrians!

In partnership with IPoP - Institute for Spatial Policies, the TAM-TAM Institute announced an international poster design competition in 2019 on pedestrian-friendly cities of the future: Cities for Pedestrians! Posters of the Winner and Finalists of the international call on the topic of pedestrian-friendly cities of the future are accessible free of charge under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence in the Gallery at Pesec.si. A pop-up exhibition of selected works was put up during European Mobility Week 2019 opened a new temporary venue for future outdoor exhibitions in the Ljubljana city centre.

Firecrackers? No, thanks!

Since 2012, the poster campaign "Firecrackers? No, thanks!" has been raising awareness about the dangers of pyrotechnics. The agency Luna/TBWA prepared the 6th poster action "Firecrackers? No thanks!" in 2018 which won 2 gold and 2 silver awards at the Slovenian Advertising Festival (SOF) and achieved the 5th placement as a brand.

In 2019, the posters even exposed the suffering of animals – a boy with a wrapped hand and a girl with a mask joined the animal heroes to emphasise the danger of injuries and the damage to the environment due to pyrotechnics. The campaign distributed in schools and other public institutions, bringing the message to digital channels as well.

In previous years, the main actors were mostly animals, but in 2020, the year of Covid-19, the approach was a bit different. The slogan became "Don’t pop firecrackers, pop from health and happiness, and spare animals and people from stress, anxiety and suffering from the noise of fireworks."

The Culture Walk project

In 2020, already for the fourth time the informational posters "Culture Walk" were guiding domestic and foreign visitors to most important cultural institutions in the capital of Slovenia, exposing quick access to different cultural events, festivals, cinematographs, museums, galleries. Along with a digital map on Google maps, the initiative enables you to find the programmes of cultural institutions in Slovene and English just a few steps away. The highlighted institutions vary slightly each year.

Coronavirus

As global pandemics in 2020 left no time for a thorough preparation of Plaktivat, thus TAM-TAM and one of the jurors put out a call to unite designers and advertising agencies to cooperate with their knowledge and experience in the effort to awaken responsibility, solidarity and humanity in individuals in the fight against the new coronavirus. More than 200 visual messages were created and presented on the official TAM-TAM Facebook profile. Additionally, posters on the streets of Ljubljana, Maribor and Kranj informed people not only with common guidelines such as stay home, wash your hands and keep a safe distance but with messages on how to be a fellow human being in every sense of the word.

The project was supported by the Slovenian Advertising Chamber and the Slovenian Marketing Association. The campaign received 3 prestigious WEBSI awards in the field of digital business: first place in the category Digital against Coronavirus, second place in the category Social Network and the award for the best content.

External links

The Cities for Pedestrians! project website

TAM-TAM Institute for Visual Culture

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