Advertising’s Avanta-Lowe CEO Maja Hawlina on her impassioned – and passionate – work with the socially-engaged Poper studio; and the importance of being creatively earnest.

I walk on slippery ground. Advertising is my starting point; at the same time, I’m interested in topics which speak – as Andrej Blatnik once nicely put it – of live wounds and life nectar. These range from the nonsense and banality of everyday life to the problems of marginalised groups and endangered species; from ignorance and empty knowledge to social inequality and omnipresent violence. Yet I’m equally intrigued by the other face of this world, with all of its outbursts of imagination, beauty, humour and happiness. In my work I try to give an account of things I personally find important, which I believe to be important for society; of those who have touched me, insulted me or made me happy.

At the Poper studio, co-founded together with Oliver Vodeb (founder of Memefest), we try to attract and sensitize various groups to reflect anew – and perhaps enhance our understanding of what’s happening to us or what we cause to happen around us – by presenting communication stories in a fresh, emotional, ironic or humorous, yet conceptually-sound and contemporary manner. In a flood of noise and stimuli and, most of all, high-budget advertising messages in both the media and the ever more capital-driven public space, it’s important to know where and how to talk to the people we wish to reach.

We don’t try to substitute facts or blur reality through imaginative, creative approaches. On the contrary, we work to implement and emphasize reality, yet communicate in a multi-layered fashion, addressing people’s needs, desires, dreams, fears, experience, prejudice or indifference.
Communication can only be stimulating and encouraging if instead of answers we offer questions and allow room for others to seek and formulate answers for themselves. At the Poper studio we like to support and work on cultural, social and contemporary marketing projects which enable us to pursue the principles of active research and learning; of openness, participation, inclusiveness, dialogue, generosity, and good will. More and more frequently these types of projects are finding their way to us; if, however, we recognise an existing need in society we’ll go out and challenge it on our own initiative.

Gypsy Boy
Here we looking to raise awareness on the Roma issue, in response to the Slovenian government’s unfortunate decision – giving way to intolerant locals – to separate Roma children from the other schoolchildren at a primary school in Bršljin (Slovenia). This is far from a simple issue; and dealing with a growing general intolerance is not, from a theoretical perspective, simple either.
In an attempt to approach the issue as both concerned citizens and communication professionals, we examined the history of our national-collective and personal attitudes towards them, and decided to play on an old Slovenian saying. The expression “If you don’t behave, we’ll give you to the Gypsies” expresses our deeply-rooted anxiety and antagonism toward the Roma. By turning it around – “If you don’t behave, we’ll give you to the Slovenians”, we revealed an internal racist, discriminatory logic of which we’re no longer even aware.
This intolerance was, unfortunately, confirmed in the public’s reaction to the billboards posted around Slovenia. Some expressed support for the emotionally-charged approach, while others (particularly the Slovene National Party, which even took civil action against the authors for offending national sensibilities and instigating intolerance towards the Slovenes) felt offended and under attack.

Anti-Terminal Silly Cup Collection
Silly is an ironic derivative of the Illy coffee brand. It’s a conceptually focussed social campaign which was used to expose an environmentally controversial and potentially dangerous project for the construction of a gas terminal in the Bay of Trieste, and to expose the involvement of Ricardo Illy, one of the principal leaders of the project. Ricardo Illy is a member of the board of directors of the renowned Illy Café Corporation, which cultivates as part of its corporate culture the public image of an environmentally sound commercial entity.
This seemed a classic example of a gross mismatch of public corporate image and the actual facts, and calls into question both their expertise and their ethics. This is becoming increasingly pervasive in the corporate world and we decided not to leave it unnoticed nor unpunished. Poper designed a concept and invited six Slovenian artists to join the project, who were happy to contribute their symbolic coffee cup motifs (coffee cups are a commonly used design-communication medium at Illy). The cup collection is part of a wider campaign which circles the virtual globe in the form of a web blog and generates interactive debate. The integral concept of this initiative, together with the cups, was shown at the City Museum of Ljubljana, and the cups are on sale at the museum shop. All profits go toward similar socially-responsible campaigns.

Street Poetry
Street poetry sets a model of communication within a culture which doesn’t operate within the narrow, profit-making market logic, but rather functions in accordance with the principles of a “gift economy” – the idea of enrichment, generosity, exchange, designer cooperation and dissemination. Thoughtful quotes on pedestrian crossings turn streets into temporary stages – they become urban areas centred on inscriptions. The quotes offer personal, poetic and socially-relevant messages – an experience of potential enrichment, awakening and amusement.
Lines were borrowed from well-known authors and conceptually sited in physical and spiritual space; powerful, universal thoughts referring to the historical place and mission of the City Museum of Ljubljana. In front of the Railway Station we read Marx’s “Revolutions are the locomotives of history”, while in front of the courts we find Shakespeare’s “Time is an old magistrate”. Such notions are no longer ‘closed away’ in books, but have begun to circulate in a different space. Though they function as complete wholes, they remain open for further autonomous interventions and encourage participation: anyone is free to change them or write a response without “destroying” the work of art. This is a contemporary approach to art which functions as an “open-ended” and “communal”, public artistic product, one that encourages cooperation and reflection, and arouses a curiosity to discover art and culture.

Author: Maja Hawlina
Photos: courtesy Poper Studio