Design, Workshop, Exhibition

How do first-time voters perceive their political responsibility? What room for manoeuvre can be used? And how can alternative political participation be shaped?

© Nikolaus Urban

The workshop "Critical Kalk" was conceived with the aim of activating first-time voters within a low-income electoral district in this year's Bundestag elections. Through creative cooperation with them, the broader public in the district was to be sensitised to their own political responsibility, especially in the Bundestag elections.

With the design of posters in the workshop, we referred to the long history of the political poster. This primarily wants to convey an attitude and influence the thoughts and actions of the viewer.In the workshop, the poster served as a tool to discuss with the participants their own attitude.

Only a clear positioning also enables a strong statement on one's own poster to be communicated to the outside. The real confrontation with the environment and with other political views requires the reflection of one's own position. In this case, design became a tool in this process of negotiation.

26 poster motifs were developed in two design sprints, reproduced and made visible in the city through cooperation with a local provider of advertising space. Almost 200 A1 posters were put up in prominent locations in Cologne-Kalk. The total of 400 posters contributed to a public discussion in the week before the election through their presence in the district.

The exhibition/release served as a nice finale for the group, as an opportunity to invite friends and acquaintances and to have an impact on the district once more.

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