TAM-TAM Institute for Visual Culture

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 a number of 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 their international poster design competition Plaktivat, TAM-TAM Institute nowadays runs three street galleries in Ljubljana, Kranj and Maribor, offering a visible exhibition space to young artists and designers and bringing their creative works closer to public. With other actions and activities they call to action and expose current social issues, sometimes bringing the solution closer as well.

Plaktivat

Giving importance to the city poster as an independent media with its own rules about the content, format and layout, a media 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 a 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. In 2021 the 13the edition of the international poster design competition Plaktivat was announced on the theme Solidarity. Last editions include themes: The Crisis of the Media, NO EXCUSE on domestic abuse with a helpline numbers visibly incorporated in a poster and Let books sweep you away on how to improve reading habits. Previous themes were addressing peer violence, hate speech migrations, among others. The winning entries of the first Plaktivat already received the SOF Award; altogether Plaktivat posters or campaigns were awarded three times at the Slovenian Advertising Festival (SOF) and eight times received the Brumen Award.

Exhibition spaces

Publications

Printed in 2018 in a circulation of 500, 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 a current situation, and at the same time encourages a public debate about benefits of responsible management of posters in a public space, imposing consequences when this is not provided.

At the end of 2019, TAM-TAM Institute completed their collection with an issue Plaktivat – Posters that change the society. A fresh contribution in the field of book edition of contemporary production of posters offers insight into social engaged poster in Slovenia. It encompasses the 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 is inexhaustibly surprising us with new project, exhibitions and events, so the best way is to follow their channels not to miss one. Here only a few, 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 the topic of 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 on page Pesec.si. A pop-up exhibition of selected works was put up during European Mobility Week 2019 and as such opened a new temporary venue for future outdoor exhibitions in Ljubljana city centre. Firecrackers? No, thanks! From 2012, the poster action "Firecrackers? No, thanks!" has been making people aware for the danger of pyrotechnics. The agency Luna/TBWA prepared the 6th poster action “Firecrackers? No thanks!” in 2018 that won 2 gold and 2 silver awards at the Slovenian Advertising Festival (SOF) and achieved the 5th placement as a brand. In 2019 posters have been exposing the suffering of animals – a boy with a wrapped hand and a girl with a mask joined the animal heroes to emphasize the danger of injuries and the damage to the environment due to pyrotechnics. The action was also exposed at school and other public institutions, bringing the message on digital channels as well. In previous years, main actors were mostly animals, but in the year of Covid, in 2020, the approach was a bit different. A slogan became “Don’t throw firecrakers, crack from health, laugh, 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 a quick access to different cultural events, festivals, cinematographs, museums, galleries. Along with a digital map on a google map the initiative enables you to find the programmes of cultural institutions in Slovene and English just a few steps away. Insitutions exposed vary slihgtly each year, the 2020 editon included Galerija ŠKUC, Galerija Fotografija, Galerija Kresija, Jakopičeva galerija, Kinodvor. Mestni kino, Ljubljanski grad, Lutkovno gledališče Ljubljana, Mestni muzej, Mestno gledališče Ljubljansko, Muzej novejše zgodovine, Muzej za arhitekturo in oblikovanje, Narodna galerija, Narodni muzej Slovenije, Narodni muzej Slovenije – Metelkova, Plečnikova hiša, Slovenski etnografski muzej, SLOGI – Slovenski gledališki inštitut, SNG Drama Ljubljana, SNG Opera in balet Ljubljana, Šentjakobsko gledališče Ljubljana, TAM-TAM Ulična galerija in Turizem Ljubljana. In 2019 the map guided you also to the Ljubljana Festival venue, Mednarodni grafični likovni center, Mestna knjižnica Ljubljana, ŠKUC Galerija

Coronavirus

As global pandemics in 2020 left no time for a deep preparation of Plaktivat, with a help of one of its jurors a call was put out with intention to unite designers and advertising agencies to cooperate with their knowledge and experiences and to awaken responsibility, solidarity and humanity in individuals in the fight against that virus. As a result more than 200 visual messages were created and presented on official TAM-TAM facebook profile, while posters on the streets of Ljubljana, Maribor and Kranj were informing people not only with common guidelines such as stay at home, wash your hands and keep a safety distance but with messages 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 action received 3 prestigious awards WEBSI in the field of digital business: first place in category Digital against Coronavirus, second place in 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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