Propazine #3

Manifesto

The objective of Propaganda_project is to reflect the impact of visual advertising in the public space . Penetrate your mind by being present everywhere. In our urban world, in the streets, on the buses we take, the magazines we read, on walls, and on screens, we are surrounded by images of an alternative way of life. We may remember or forget these images, but briefly, we take them in. And for a moment, they stimulate our imagination, either by way of memory or anticipation. Perturbing the eye by the contamination of a visual in the public space to see what blinds us, this is the goal of this project.

Stickers capture the eye of the citizen. From a marketing point of view, branding is the most important thing for a company. It does not matter whether the company is a start-up or has been in existence for a hundred years. The recognition of the logo and name is invaluable, and artists have understood this well. In different sizes and colours, using multiple production and printing processes, the sticker leaves a mark that can affect a person’s mood, provoke reflection, or trigger a reaction.

The sticker is a product of the streets so naturally it slips into every corner of the public space. Present everywhere, but invisible for the most part. It actually offers a new vision of the city, forcing us to slow down to find them. We instantly stop seeing the city as a whole, because the art of stickers does not only concern its content, but also its integration into the environment. Once your eye gets used to it, this search becomes obsessive. We start looking for them, analyzing them. Walking around the city never allows you to enjoy everything it has to offer. Indeed, Man has blinded himself through time, by the creation of a material environment, which constantly injects visual keys and a kaleidoscope of soothing images that the mass constantly ingests.

So take the time to look around, fuck ads, stay free!

Running the streets since May 2017

This third book shows a bunch of slaps around the world. Years of trades, creation and investment in global public space. Thank you to the sticker family around the world and everyone who participated in the project and spread the soul of the sticker. www.propaganda-projet.com

Statistics

December 2022. To date, more than 3500 stickers are listed on the virtual map. Propaganda_project has printed more than 15000 stickers in screen printing, linocut, thermal transfert printing, four-color printing on vinyl, eggshells, and more. Propaganda_project also includes collaborations with other street artists, participation in some exhibitions around the world. In 5 years of activity, the project stays visible in the streets. And this is just the beginning of something huge. Thank you to all people who slapped Propa somewhere, let’s make it bigger!

From 2017 to 2022

Around the world

GlasgowScottland Cap Town - South Africa

Puerto Vallarta -

Mexico

Punta CanaRep. Dom

Hawaï

MontrealCanada

Sharm Ash SheikhEgyptt

Combos Together stronger

Collaboration from a template

On the occasion of the 3rd volume of Propazine, a template was available for the creation of exclusive collaboration between propaganda_project and other artists.

Mr. Nice Shice X Propaganda_Project

Whalebomb X Propaganda_Project Violence_visuelle X Propaganda_Project

Naipe79

Eduard Dinic X Propaganda_Project

Guerrilla Sticker X Propaganda_Project

Nicholasofthestars X Propaganda_Project Knotsandnotknots X Propaganda_Project

Blogdidthis X Propaganda_Project Psiconauta X Propaganda_Project

Interviews

Because it is also important to spread and discover others messages from other artists, you can learn more about some sticker artists right here.

Youfo (Australia)

Present yourself in few sentences.

My name is Youfo, i’m a sticker enthusiast.

When and why do you slap in the streets?

I generally travel to the big city to slap my stickers because it’s a place where they are more likely to be seen and it’s easier to get away with putting em up.

I slap stickers because it’s one of the only hobbies that I have & I feel I make a mark on the world when I put them up.

What is important for you in sticker art?

Making sure people know who I am.

Fun fact or anecdote to share?

I don’t use photoshop or any computer program to create my digital stuff, I use many, many different websites, phone applications & more.

Instagram: @youfosignhere

Makenoize (Canada)

MAKENOIZE is a Montreal based street artist who has been putting up positive messages in the streets for more than 10 years. In hopes of brightening up a darker period in his life, he started putting up smileys and hearts all over the city. High visibility spots were always his target. This approach gradually flourished, filling him with happiness while being him a positive message provider. Upcycling has always been at the heart of his approach, constantly giving a new life to obsolete objects. He doesn’t ask permission to spread love.

With a constantly growing fanbase, the positive messages are always evolving through different mediums.

Instagram: @artofmakenoize

Website: https://artofmakenoize.blogspot.com

901 Crew (France)

Present yourself in few sentences.

We are the 901, a crew ironically composed not of nine hundred and one people as its name suggests – it comes rather from our geographical origin – but of two, a “duo solo” as we like to say. Two brothers whose main common artistic and creative activity is rap. Nevertheless, each on our side, we are jacks of all trades in terms of art: one is rather connected to graphic arts, design and painting, the other is rather connected to literature and poetry. For the most part, it is our activity and our musical passion that are affected by the sticker culture since “901 crew” stickers of all kinds are springing up here and there. There are a multitude of reasons for this: sometimes a logical taste for childhood and Panini vignettes, sometimes an underground and cultural heritage that naturally pushes us to want to appear on he elements of the urban space.

When and why do you slap in the streets?

In our daily lives, whether it’s going to work in the morning or going out in the evening to do who knows what, there is first of all a «practice» of stickers which is natural. No matter where we go, no matter what we do, there’s always a small sheaf of stickers lying around in the pocket of the coat or a large packet of stickers well placed in the bag and this allows us to pose at anytime, anywhere. Then, the places to stick depend on the activity: a motorway rest area and a toll station out and

about, poles and streetlights strolling through a city, etc. If the walls and small spaces such as electric terminals have their graffiti in the urban space, then the gutters along the buildings and the red lights must have their stickers! Finally, let us note – in our opinion of course –several reasons for this practice in addition to those mentioned above: the approach and the fact of marking one’s territory in this way, leaving a trace of one’s passage outside the places frequented in everyday life, a kind of necessary «battle» of «over-sticking» when there is rivalry on racist, political stickers, etc.), and also the addition of our contribution when there are already friends or crews who are passed by sticking above or beside – as with Propaganda Project. Finally, since our stickers are related to our musical creation and we have an old-fashioned way of working, that is to say without social networks, our stickers allow us to street-promote our rap.

What is important for you in sticker art?

Strolling through our areas, we are always surprised by so and so who has been there and who, discreetly or not, has marked his passage. When sightseeing, all sticker enthusiasts look at the dirty lampposts and gutters of the big cities rather than the monuments and architectural pieces! It has always fascinated us. With Propaganda Project, let’s not lie, we discovered an even more evolved facet of the practice of stickers and the form of practice it represents. The big combos where one and the other stick for him, them and their friends on a small surface, it’s superb! There is a real movement, it is very honorable and above all very beautiful because all the gluers have renewed creativity and audacity for sticker. Thus, there is a certain beauty in the process: the initial design (by hand, on the computer, etc.), the time spent on it, he financial investment to print or, even better, the pirate plans to have a bundle free and very dirty stickers, outings and collage sessions, and then the pleasure of knowing where we have been, where we will have to go back, etc. Thus, this practice is an integral part, in our view, of the urban landscape of our time. The sticker is “present everywhere” and the gluer is, for his part, “visible nowhere” as the literary formula says. It is a quiet, repeated and hammered, massive intervention.

The result comes to personalize the city, it is moving, ephemeral, it marks its time with pieces that remain, which are ironed, which suffer from bad weather and fade away... It’s great!

Fun fact or anecdote to share?

Finally, we do not necessarily have fun facts or anecdotes to tell because we are not at the level of Propaganda Project in our practice of stickers. But there would be two, three things to note all the same: the mad excitement of the pirate plan to print its adhesives like the receipt of an order to be exploited, for example. Also, like everyone else, we all have the madness to observe who went where and, sometimes, to have to «over-sticker», sometimes on crazy thicknesses! With the practice of the pole, you can always go higher, it is a beautiful recent discovery. Finally, a fun fact, we think we know all those fucking municipal agents who come and scratch the stickers to try to remove them (in vain…), which, to top it off, makes the post even more disgusting. it’s up to us to go back in stride to set the record straight!

Thank you and glory to Propaganda Project! The project is amazing. Youtube:

The Unividuals

Present yourself in few sentences.

The Unividuals are no one and everyone, everything and nothing. It’s about reminding everyone and no one in particular that you cannot do good without doing it for others and you cannot do harm without harming yourself. We are all matter, the same matter, one.

When and why do you slap in the streets?

Out and about, every moment. Always packing some stickers for when a nice spot presents itself. It’s for the rush of this small act of rebellion, it’s so that people can enjoy some interesting scenery in cities and of course it’s also for the thrill of leaving your mark.

What is important for you in sticker art?

Concept is key, if you have that then you already have the framework to tell your story. In the end we’re all storytellers, one way or the other.

Fun fact or anecdote to share?

A while ago we noticed that a uni sticker up the street had a small hand made cross duct taped to it. It was made by tying two twigs together with string, you could really see that someone made the effort. We thought it was because someone thought the sticker to be demonic, people sometimes read the zig zag as empty and equate it to evil. But on closer inspection around the neighbourhood, we noticed that these little crosses were all over. Duct taped on stickers, hidden in weird places. Someone is crucifying the neighbourhood two twigs at a time. One day We found one hidden in a traffic sign but decided to leave it there, we could be one of two people who know that it’s there.

Instagram: @theunividuals Website: https://theunividuals.wordpress.com

Rafa_l_stickers (France)

Present yourself in few sentences.

My name is Raphaël (Rafa.L), from France, in a wheelchair since 1995. Not a professional artist but doing exhibition Art and stuff for many years (about 16 years).

When and why do you slap in the streets?

I started to slap stickers in 2016 to touch more people : those who don’t go to exhibition and to put the disability in the street to make it more « rebel » and COOL!

What is important for you in sticker art?

The most interesting thing with stickers is that :

- we can touch lot of people in the street - easy to trade world wild - not too expensive - funny

Fun fact or anecdote to share?

Nothing special, but by trading, we meet lot of people and that’s COOL! Instagram:

whalebomb (Usa)

Whalebomb is a graffiti project dedicated to the mission of keeping clean beaches. The project was created in 2018 by Mr. William Boom upon learning the impossible fact that the whales are exploding.

A combination of trash consumption and the decomposition of internal organs has lead to an increased phenomenon of exploding whales via methane build up (not to be confused with THE exploding whale, which was blown up in 1970 on the coast of Oregon by 1000 pounds of tnt). Having obtained this knowledge, Mr. William Boom immediately took to the streets, posting stickers and tags of the impending doom that will be brought on by the exploding whales, exclaiming the simple message, “keep clean beaches”. During his efforts, Mr. William Boom came across similar artists who, too, had just as personal and dire messages of their own, and felt the need to take to the streets and make their voices heard. It was an entire community; One of which Mr. Boom took to quickly, and made friends and connections with those who make guerrilla advertising their livelihood. “It’s the strongest, most hidden in plain site, community in the world” Mr. Boom reported, “each writing their own personal name or message on the streets, each just as important as my own. It’s marvelous”.

When Mr. William Boom was asked about his favorite fact, he simply turned to the camera and stated: the whales are exploding.

Instagram: @whalebomb

AUTT (France)

Present yourself in few sentences.

So we are AUTT (Au Taco Toque), a bunch of french friends who met in middle School in Lyon. The AUTT project started a few years ago, in 2018, when we launched an e-sport team and a music band. These 4 letters quickly became a way for us all to unite under the same banner, no matter our differences: some of us prefers to design stickers at home, others prefers to slap or draw them directly on the walls.

When and why do you slap in the streets?

We usually slap during the day, going to class or work, but when we spend time out together, we use it to put a lot of them, and sharing between us the new design we just draw. Being together is a lot more fun and we enjoy to carry an another member on our shoulders to reach inaccessible spots where there is a lot of visibility. The main reason why we slap is because it boosts our creativity, we always want to propose new designs for the people to see, and living in a densely populated area, we know that a lot of people see them. It’s our contribution to embellish the city. We also love to slap when we go abroad, and we love to trade stickers with other all across the globe, we really like the idea that art enable us to show something colorful to a stranger 6000km away, and hopefully make them smile.

What is important for you in sticker art?

For us, the most important things are to always have fresh designs and to put them were people will see them, but especially in places where they will enjoy to see them: behind traffic signs are our favorite place because it doesn’t offend anyone. We greatly prefer variety over quantity, but that’s pretty cool to have your design and name in every part of a large city, especially considering that for us this name kinda means family! We love ambitious designs, colorful ones, those with unusual size or shape!

Fun fact or anecdote to share?

Once we were going to the south of France, and we had to wait a bit for the next train, so we decided to slaps near the train station, and we were doing a combo with 10+ stickers, when out of nowhere, two very upsets old ladies come towards us yelling at us and they ask us what we are doing. We were kinda p*ssed off because we had a train to catch, and even if we didn’t want to kave a confrontation, they didn’t want to let us go like that, so we had to explain that we were a music band and that we just slapping stickers for fun and blah blah blah when one of them said “ah damn I was scared, I thought you were putting some politics sh*t or something in my town” before leaving without another word, and it makes us laugh and smile to this day!

Instagram: @auttacotoque

See Obscure (Usa)

Present yourself in few sentences. Ruddy “Obscure” Mejia. NYC, Bronx Based. Artist/Educator

I think of myself as a never ending “collision” of constants thoughts amidst a turbulent sea of insomnia with a love for commanding people’s attention through my illustrations and self-made merch.

When and why do you slap in the streets?

I take to the street’s everyday in the daily hustle and bustle of life whether traveling to work or just hanging in my city. The beauty of placing the slaps is that its never planned I try to be as organic as possible based on the image that I am leaving behind so all objects and locations are fair game, and if its not me leaving behind my mark its other people who have obtained my stickers through trades, purchases, or freebies at my exhibiting shows. I love finding my art out in the wild or receiving pictures after they are placed, my most favorite placement being and old beat-up firefighter callbox.

What is important for you in sticker art?

In sticker art for me the most Important things are the Command for attention, the visual being portrayed and the statement being made the point of a sticker in my opinion is to be memorable to become part of the person observing them and their routine, the sticker becomes part of where it is placed but once its left out there in the elements of the world it also becomes part of the decay, vandalism change, and removal.

Fun fact or anecdote to share?

With my love for illustrating and teaching I have designed a module for my students (6th to 8th grade) in which they learn how to create their own images for sticker making, every part of creating the sticker is done by hand (Image, Coating, Cutting) and they are encouraged to trade among themselves and to make empty spaces their own when ever possible through artistic images in a variety of mediums.

Instagram: @see_obscure

Psiconauta (Brazil)

Present yourself in few sentences.

My name is Psiconauta , based in the city of Indaiatuba São Paulo in Brazil .

When and why do you slap in the streets?

I’ve been hitting the streets for a little over 15 years, it’s a way of expressing myself through this culture, it helped me a lot to overcome anxiety and depression.

What is important for you in sticker art?

More important than sticking stickers is making friends with the artists and maintaining that interaction.

Fun fact or anecdote to share?

This cult of stickers led me to be present in more than 60 countries around the world!

Instagram: @psiconautastickers

This book has been designed and printed in a limited edition of 30 copies by Propaganda_project, somewhere in the world. Special thanks to The Unividuals for reviewing the book before print!