THE CHALLENGE

For Pride Month 2024 the Italian design and art magazine Collater.al and the LGBTQIA+ association Orgoglio Porta Venezia Milano got together to launch "Poster Art, una mostra a cielo aperto" (eng. "Poster Art, an open-air exhibition").
They've jointly selected 5 artworks by 5 artists, of course celebrating Pride.
The posters were initially only to be placed in outdoor locations and shops in Milan Port Venezia area, aiming to make the streets of Milan’s most inclusive neighbourhood (even) more colorful.

THE ARTWORK

I designed my artwork to celebrate Non-Binary Day and felt like it was matching very much the the exhibition theme. Perhaps, I've found really tempting to build a visual based on trains when the Italian Secretary of State for Transport has such conservatives ideas on inclusivity.

Sadly, not even 24 hours after the posters placement, the artworks got vandalised.

The organisers found themselves with the question of how to proceed: substituting the posters or adopting another strategy?

THE OUTCOME

To avoid replacing the posters and risking that the same responsible people would vandalise the artworks wall again, Collateral came up with a different idea. They decided to collect the torn pieces, reassembled them into a mosaic, and scan them. The designs were subsequently displayed on LED screens all over Milan with the powerful tagline, "They ripped them apart in Porta Venezia, and now they are all over Milan." The posters accompanied the Milan Pride Parade that took place on Saturday, June 27.