The Politically Fuelled Rant

One of the projects I worked on in the past few days was a special edition of Legacy on the upcoming Presidential Elections here in Cyprus. Despite the seemingly boring topic, it was a fairly pleasant project and I got to learn a lot (e.g. these are the mere 12th elections we're having). The edition includes illustrations by yours faithfully while Christina Olympiou and Philippos Vassiliades were commissioned to produce original work for the publication. (Exhibits A, below.)

Portraits by Christina Olympiou

Illustration by Philippos Vassiliades

In general, though, I've noticed that politics, on a greater level, has bled into pop culture and I have to confess that I am quite amused and pleased by this. Perhaps in some other countries in the world (hello, America) this has been a reality for decades and decades now, (hello, Beyoncé, lip-syncing the national anthem there and Barack Obama's HOPE poster from 2008 by Shepard Fairey among other amazing Obama-inspired artwork), but this is a first here in Cyprus. (And I do have a relevant, national anthem-related rant which I will put to sleep for now until I get the chance to spit that out in the future.)

And I present to you exhibits B & C: 

B. I don't know who went all Banksy/Anonymous here and created this series of Fairey's HOPE-inspired posters depicting four of our most prominent (each one for their respective reasons) candidates, with words the creators felt that represent each one of them.

C. And Ouffou's entertaining take on the huge billboards that are all over the island. The mockup reads "Crisis needs a fun leader" spoofing the actual slogans of the actual campaigns.