TOWAPO. Un Mundo Feliz 1999-2019Sala c arte c (Centro Arte Complutense)—This exhibition brings together a representative part of the work of the graphic artivists, Un Mundo Feliz, who have a career of more than two decades dedicated to looking at and questioning what surrounds us.
Un Mundo Feliz conceives design as an element of transformation and social commitment, exploring from art the current issues that are mostly controversial. The contents do not leave us indifferent, the topics addressed are real and close and their messages make us think, laugh and cry.
They question what they have sold us, which in most cases is not in tune with our reality, and they expect us, as active spectators, to confront them and participate. The language is direct and open, based on visual communication and direct cultural action.
The exhibition consists of 999 images grouped into various thematic series that follow one another in no particular order, but in which we find apparent relationships, just as in our environment where there is no succession of events, but rather their coexistence.
It is not an aesthetic exhibition, although it could be, since that is how it is conceived museographically. It is a committed exhibition that we believe is very appropriate in the university context.
—TOWAPO means "PlunderArt, CrunkGraphics & Mashup"OBJECTIVES1. To stimulate debate through the presentation and dissemination of issues related to graphic and visual activism. 2. To turn "c art c" into a place to show and share critical knowledge applied to graphic creation.
A meeting place open to anyone interested in discovering the communicative potential of design. 3. To invite the university and non-university educational community at any level to use this public space as a centre for learning and free cultural creation.
CONTENTS300 posters18 banners15 T-shirts6 issues of Bastard Art Review80 Politics fanzinesBooks: Crit-icon Stencil Book, Pictopia and The New Disasters of War100 Postcards1 Poster box: Make posters not war15 Political T-shirts—On social commitment and artivism "Towapo"—Claire Bishop points out that there is a great variety of practices in artistic creation where she highlights what she has called the social turn.
This consists of utopianly rethinking the relationship of art with social issues by promoting its political potential. Politics is an activity inherent to the citizen, since it is he or she who must intervene in public affairs with multiple possibilities, but always from the standpoint of action and commitment and not as a mere spectator.
On the other hand, art has the fundamental function of communication and in the public space it becomes collective and shared, contributing to the creation of social links from perspectives that can be much more enriching.
Design is a tool of that artistic communication which, when it addresses social issues, which are generally controversial, becomes visual activism, so necessary in institutional contexts.
Everything is there, you just have to know how to look and participate as free and reflective citizens who want to change attitudes, behaviours and conventions that do not let society advance.
Images speak to us, they question us, we must learn to listen and activate our responses. by Isabel GarciaVice-Rector for Culture, Sport and University Extension
