The Nature of Human Nature

Overview

MindBomb started as the street postering project of a group of artists and friends in 2002 in Cluj, Romania. It was a pioneering action at the time, marking the reintroduction of the truly autonomous sociopolitical poster in Romanian culture. The ultimate purpose of this collaborative street postering action is the creation of an autonomous space for dialogue and debate that initiates social change around some of the more pressing sociopolitical issues that are shaping mainly contemporary Romanian society. MindBomb’s belief is that an effective poster will be one that implicates each viewer as an active participant in the collective process of reshaping society that could lead to positive change, not in order to create a forum for consensus, but one for the clash of competing ideas and claims – a truly democratic space.

The MindBomb project gathered around it a community of volunteers, forming an organic space in which friendship and affinity were factors galvanising a network amplified by the internet: people took part in the actions without knowing each other and in the end this created opinions. For the MindBomb campaign in 2004, some 12,000 posters were printed and disseminated in 10 Romanian towns. This event was an opportunity to create a lively forum for online discussions about political and socio-economic issues in Romanian contemporary society.

The 2006 action – “MindBomb for Rosia Montana!” was a protest against Europe’s planned biggest open cast gold mine at Rosia Montana which would make intensive use of cyanide. It was equally a protest against the publicity campaigns of Gabriel Resources and Rosia Montana Gold Corporation for this extremely dangerous project. This was the first time that such an action has been used for an environmental campaign anywhere in the world. Through this protest MindBomb aims to highlight the problem of environmental pollution in Romania and its relationship with the overwhelming corruption of the state and local authorities.

At Sharjah Biennial 8, drawing on its leading concepts, MindBomb will present a series of five posters through which we question the local context for the global and actual issues of our common world. We believe that, by asking some central questions, we can reach the intimate depth of each viewer and provoke active answers, whether these are observable or not. We are convinced that a person’s deepest inner beliefs and concerns are the same the world over, no matter their apparent cultural differences.

We do not want messages with overly vague statements of criticism that are cynical and demoralising. We want to create critical but inspirational posters aimed at changing attitudes, not politics, and to inspire the individual to personal action, to the belief that the first step to change begins with changing oneself.


This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 8.