Poster culture is thriving during the Trumpandemic, with a flurry of design initiatives covering many of the progressive causes the president is aggressively dismantling.
Recently, I was introduced to the Biophilia Poster Competition sponsored by BrandCulture and PosterTerritory. The founder and curator of the latter, Olga Severina, wrote to inform me that designers inspired by biophilia—"the idea that humans and nature have an intrinsic bond and that people should nurture this bond instead of fighting it"—were invited to explore the theme for the international competition. "We got more than 3,600 posters from 167 countries," she wrote. "I believe that one of the reasons that this event had such resonance is because of COVID-19. I think it brought into focus how fragile and how dependent on nature we all are."
The Biophilia competition will culminate in a traveling exhibition of 100+ posters selected as finalists, making stops at the Atlanta International Design Festival, Smart City Expo Atlanta, Global Wellness Day at Serenbe, The Helms Designer Center Los Angeles and a PosterTerritory event in Barcelona.
A focus on biophilia comes at a time when people are generally separated from nature. Biophilic design, designing with this relationship in mind, can benefit both the health of the planet and people. When parks, buildings and spaces are designed with nature in mind, people tend to feel better, more balanced and more restored. “I see us, as a humanity, moving towards a new design ecology, one that embraces complex system thinking, creative problem solving, ecology and biophilia, while promoting the understanding of our interconnectedness to a world much greater than ourselves,” says Elizabeth Calabrese, Biophilic educator and architect and competition jury member.
