Orange Work, 2024. Núllið Gallery, Reykjavík, Iceland. (DesignMarch)

Project description, methodology and approach

Orange Work was a solo exhibition held during Iceland’s design week, presenting research into the history of anti-capitalist graphic design in Freetown Christiania (Copenhagen, Denmark). The installation consisted of twenty poster designs & a participatory area where guests could create their own contributions.

Freetown Christiania’s experiment with anarchy began in the 70s and continues today. The squatters who initially inhabited the 19-acre site in the Christianshavn neighborhood of Copenhagen were young, queer, radical, anti-hierarchical and anti-capitalist. They were also willing to fight to protect their communalism.

Using the rainbow as a guide, they self-segmented into armies, with each color of the rainbow representing a different skill. The orange army—those who were doing orange work—were, among other trades, poster-makers. They were tasked with telling the story of the commune to the masses, communicating their collective ideals to the rest of the world.

This experiment takes inspiration from the work that the orange army was doing during the early years of the establishment of Freetown Christiania.

Using the tools of poster-making—of communicating ideology in a visual way—this work imagines alternate governmental structures, prefigures practices that do not rely on ammassing capital in order for group survival and visualizes ways that we (all humans) can live in a more harmonious and communal way.

You are now leaving the Schengen area :)

Context and contribution to the field

The ideas behind looking to graphic design in an anarchist commune sprang up from the influx of publications about the connections between design and capitalism. Books like Design after Capitalism, (Wizinsky, 2022), CAPS LOCK (Pater, 2021), Who Can Afford To Be Critical (Lorusso, 2022) inspired me to consider what graphic design looks like when it is created within a non-Capitalistic environment. Orange Work is then a survey of the recent history of intentionally non- or anti-Capitalistic graphic design, in the Nordic context. It includes a participatory element wherein guests are invited to contribute to the conversation.

Mediation and impact

This exhibition occurred during Iceland’s design festival DesignMarch, 2.-5. april 2024 in Núllið Gallery at Bankastræti 0 in 101 Reykjavík, Iceland.

Collaboration

This research was supported in parts by both Freetown Christiania and Iceland University of the Arts.