In October we received an email from Jan & Affex of the artgroup Surrend.  After traveling to various political hotspots including Poland, Belarussia, Turkey, and Serbia, the group contacted us from Sri Lanka where they were doing a street campaign with stickers.

They wrote…

“We are here in Colombo to proclamate peace since the breach of truce and the impending civil war has arisen again. We come with the message of peace through 4 stickers, which bare slogans such as “Potentially prosperous society” “Terrible beaches here” “The food is as bad as in Denmark” “Snow all year”, all stickers containing the phrase “Of course you kill each other” underneath each single statement. We work with irony in the text. We ask of people to see the beauty and possibilities of their country. We don’t have any solutions for the situation here, so it comes about in a naive and childish way to just ask for peace, and in that respect the stickers have been made with the appearance of children’s drawings, originally made with watercolor as well. The status here is very tense, and we have been stopped in car up to 5 times in two kilometers, by armed guards in full gear with Kalashnikovs. They are present in the streets almost everywhere. The people we have met in the streets while sticking have been very friendly and interested, and seem to have a good attitude towards us and our business. The irony is hopefully understood by people who see the stickers by themselves.”