COP 15 Signs

Four screen-printed signs made for use in the demonstrations during the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen. A collaboration with Asmus Lauridsen. The summit took place from 7 December to 18 December 2009.

We created four signs that should work both in the demonstrations and on photo documentation afterwards. We decided to go strictly typographical and sans colour to make them stand out from the rest.

The first sign says “WE DON’T NEED NEW DESIGNS WE NEED A NEW SOCIETY”. This is a commentary to the blind faith in technology as the great saviour. We honestly don’t believe that new designs and technology will really change the big picture. Good intended design won’t do us any good as long as the global society is driven by capitalism. Money and profit will always be king in “this” society. We also liked the paradox that we as designers are designing a sign telling people not to believe in design.

The second sign says “I’M TIRED OF THIS SHIT LET’S GET BURGERS AND FRIES”. Now we have really gone down the nihilistic lane. Our Marxist views left us with no expectations to the Summit. It is not about reducing a small percentage CO2 emission a year. It is about creating a new society. With this pessimistic approach we thought that the phrase was a good statement on the indifference of the summit. This phrase makes even more sense in the light of the total failure of creating a new visionary climate treaty on the summit.

The third sign says “THE ICE CAPS ARE MELTING SO IS MY HEART”. Still down the nihilistic lane but now with a poetic edge. We don’t really know what the point is exactly. Maybe something about not letting the forthcoming doom of earth destroys your mood. Anyway, the sign made people smile.

The last sign says “LALANDIA”. Lalandia is a well-known waterpark in Denmark. The idea was to use the sign in case the police would use their new mobile water canon against demonstrators during the summit. This did never happened and we never used the sign.