This year, the theme of the Art on Billboards Competition was „Reality or fiction? Let’s pretend it’s not there”. This slogan can serve as a kind of metaphor of the processes taking place in the contemporary world. It raises the question of whether what we encounter in our daily life is real or fictional and whether it is possible to distinguish one from the other. Simultaneously, the slogan also invites the question of what we, as individuals and as a community, are trying to hide. Are there any specific phenomena, processes or events that we tend to intentionally ignore and pretend “they’re not there”?
These questions are not only concerned with the negative social processes such as the breakdown of interpersonal relationships, but also with the way media shape people’s outlook on reality by preferring to inform primarily about negative events and treating positive phenomena as not exciting enough for the contemporary viewer.
Does the Internet, this state of the art medium of communication, helps us reach the truth or rather drags us into the world of fiction? Do new, technologically advanced means of communication help or hinder our contact with reality? There could be many other interpretations of the competition slogan and there are also many different answers to the questions posed by it. We think that the question of what is real and what is fictional is a very meaningful one. If we stop asking ourselves what is and what is not real, what we notice and what we overlook, how will we be able to say who we are and what world we really live in?
747 artists from 55 countries entered the Billboard Art Contest, which is the part of the International Festival of Art on Billboards, this year. We received 1328 art works from Australia, Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, South Korea, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Spain and many others.
The international jury panel, including:
- Marcos Ramirez ERRE /artist / Tijuana, Mexico; San Diego, USA /
- Ken Lum / artist / Vancouver, Canada /
- Cesar Garcia / curator LAXART / Los Angeles, USA /
- Rafał Góralski / artist, Art Moves Festival director / Toruń, Poland /
selected 10 most interesting projects which will be displayed on billboards in the competition exhibition of Art Moves Festival 2011.
- Jean-Philippe Paumier / The Netherlands
- Ivaylo Gueorgiev & Eric Pitra / USA
- Vassilina Pljonkina / Estonia
- Mark Adams / Great Britain
- Céline Wouters / The Netherlands
- Aimee-Rose Stephenson / New Zealand / United Arab Emirates
- Monica Fraile Morisson / France
- Sarah Clifford-Rashotte / Canada
- Ivo de Jeu / The Netherlands
- Patryk Leś / Poland
The jury decided to confer the main award of 10000 PLN (about 2.540 EUR, 3.770 USD) to Jean-Philippe Paumier from The Netherlands.