Like many words in Mexican Spanish, the word ‘chingar’ has many different meanings, both good and bad. If used as a verb, depending in the context, it can mean ‘to bother’, ‘to work hard’, ‘to eat’, ‘to have sexual intercourse’, ‘to steal’ or ‘to break’. If used as an adjective, it can mean ‘good’, ‘cool’, ‘bad’, ‘awful’, ‘the best’ or ‘curse’. You can also combine it with other words to create new ones. Some people use the word 'chingar' for almost everything.
This multifacted example is one of many cultural clichés and idiomatic expressions illustrated in a new exhibition of poster design organised by young Russian studio The Bakery in collaboration with paper manufacturer Arjowiggins. Encompassing 40 posters from 20 studios across the globe, the show, titled ‘United Notions’, is an exercise in explaining both simple and complex concepts through type, illustration, form and colour.
At the start of the project, participating studios were divided into pairs to create two posters each – one based on a word or expression used in their native country and another based on one selected by their peers. The result is two different graphical interpretations of each expression.
‘The aim is to show that as much as we differ from each other, we still can speak the same language,’ says Anna Khmelevskaya, the exhibition's curator, which is due to go on show at Berlin's Kreuzberg Umspannwerk this week. ‘While governments and politicians can’t come to certain agreements, we still can relate to each other's culture.’
Encompassing 40 posters from 20 studios across the globe, the exhibtion is an exercise in explaining cultural clichés and idiomatic expressions through type, illustration, form and colour. Photography: Lena Tsibizova
Participating studios were divided into pairs to create two posters each – one based on a word or expression used in their native country and another based on one selected by their peers. The result is two different graphical interpretations of each expression. Photography: Lena Tsibizova
Pictured is an explanation of the Mexican Spanish word 'chingar' by Dutch studio, Mainstudio...
... and here, Mexican studio Savvy offer their own visualisation of the word's meaning
Portuguese studio Epiforma attmept to communicate the Chinese concept of 'Feng Shui' (a philosophical system that seeks to achieve harmony between people and their environment) as a bright grid of pattern and colour...
... while Chinese studio 1983 Asia illustrate the philosophy by layering Chinese handwriting with an image of a maneki-neko with glowing red eyes
Due to go on show at Berlin's Kreuzberg Umspannwerk this week, the exhibition has already run in Moscow and is scheduled to conclude in St Petersburg in September. Photography: Lena Tsibizova
'When we came up with an idea for this exhibition three years ago, we could not imagine [we'd recieve] such an emotional feedback,' says curator Anna Khmelevskaya of The Bakery. 'Our aim was to launch it in Moscow to arouse interest in graphic design among the Russian audience. But after the exhibition opened on 29 May, we received a huge amount of attention from the international community.' Photography: Lena Tsibizova
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