An anticampaign project: Understanding how a political message would be received by the audience according to different areas in Dessau, Germany.
During the last Elections in Germany, the AFD party launch its Campaign "Deutschland Aber normal" (Deutschland but normal). There, they started claiming for a "Traditional Germany" where, according to their communications, they only belong to local people, families are conservative and there is no place for non-binary genders, and so on...
Looking in the DDR, Bauhaus, and in the city archives; I found that Dessau, a mid-sized town located in the state of Sachsen Anhalt, has been a place where multiculturalism has been taking place, either in concerts, festivals, work, migrations, etc.
Based on the research for the audience, I found an official and unofficial street language: The official way that AFD communicates its ideals is through posters. At the same time, supporters communicate Right-wing Ideology through stickers, Those messages are fully charged with Symbolism, acronyms, and challenging Copywrites.
Then I decided to create a set of posters and stickers.
With those pieces, I wanted to take the same slogan but altering by telling that this "Traditional Germany" that AFD claims were always with people from different countries, nurturing each other and also a place where woman can have the same rights as men.
Beyond the visual design, I wanted to track how those communication pieces would be part of the Dessau street language. Hence, I took 3 different parts of the city: Ziebigk (where Bauhaus building, the Hochschule, and other tourist places are located), Dessau Nord: where there is a lot of students living, and Dessau Sud, a place more traditional and conservative.
In Ziebigk all poster remains from October til winter, Stickers are located near to the Main trains station where stuck over stickers related to AFD. In the photo, you will watch that "Die Partei" supporters follow the same behavior.
In Sud Dessau, the most conservative area, Posters were stuck next to AFD supporters graffiti, they remained there for around two weeks, then they were vandalized or retired by anonymous people.
Nord has different reactions, because of its diversity, some of them were vandalized, another one's stickers were altered by changing the message, another of them still remains.
