by
We have received a lot of comment on the graphic design this year and we thought we needed to put it in perspective with a bit of the back story.
Cementa Man
We try, every festival, to base our look on an art work or art form - this is in order to get away from promoting art through the quality of our graphic design. This year we commissioned a work from artist Fiona MacDonald who has shown in two of the festivals, is local to the area, and makes stunning collage works within her practice.
Fiona is also the secretary and curator at The Kandos Museum and the work she produced was compiled from the photographic documentation of industrial objects within the museum’s collection. As Fiona’s previous festival works referenced, much of the industrial design that informs these objects traces its lineage to Russian Constructivism and thus to a cornerstone of modern art.
It seems a perfect avatar: composited from an archeology of useful objects belonging to a non pictorial tradition, producing a tongue-in-cheek representation, a stick figure man, a carnival barker calling us to a festival of art that celebrates its contradictions, the confusion of art and life, and refuses to take itself all that seriously.
Thank you Fiona MacDonald, Fiona Hudson (who did all the brilliant graphic design that goes around this work) and to Ian Hobbs for our brilliant website!
Brilliant, great to hear the story behind Cementa Man and thank you Fiona Macdonald. What an artist congrats.