Why?

Because we love it!

 

Design and art must be based on a concept. 

The Hypnotized Society artwork is constructed of a stamp that is a replica of a police form one receives when reporting a crime. The four different artworks are hand stamped on a pastel colored paper. This is on of the most important works in the installation, if not the most important. It might be difficult to understand, and for a foreigner probably impossible to understand if the concept is not explained, or  it if one has not been to the police. Literally the viewer is asked to read between the lines.

People tend to see what they want to see, not see what they actually see in front of them. Many people are not necessarily able to connect the police form and the artwork, and their replica character, as the police form can be normally found at the police stations, not in an art gallery. Ministry likes to leave things unexplained and up to the viewer to interpret.

The philosophy of the ministry is to copy-paste text from a source and create art from that text. This simple and repetitive pattern is the way the ministry works. The process is more important than the design and the work itself is done in a very quick manner, can be compared to crime. If you snooze you loose kind of philosophy!

Viva Windhoek Lager-! juxtaposes the philosophy of Ubuntu, the thought of African youth and the pitfalls of national consciousness from different printed sources that highlight different perspectives of the society in one artwork.  

Graphic design (which is not born in Namibia as a theoretical discipline) will maybe never enter the minds of the majority of graphic designers in Namibia. DOES IT HAVE TO? Does design have to be based on theory?

Posters are generally looking for actions from the viewer. Generally they direct the way to a happening. Ministry of Truth and Typography uses posters in a passive way. The happening was a crime, in this case. It is past its happening and a natural continuum from crime would be police solving the crime. 

The only activity the poster encourages to happen, is reading and thinking which either happens or does not. This is not crime prevention. These alphabets are about the society and self-expression of the Ministry of Truth and Typography. If you know M is for Murder series. That is the reference. Now.

Ministry of Truth and Typography is anti lavish money produced so-called designs.  We downgrade to regular standard paper sizes, hand stamps, posters with no physical action or modifications needed, such as, if there is a poster inviting you to an opening, you start to modify your appearance to something you necessarily are not. 

Honesty stands behind the work R is for robbery. Design can never exist without the context, and this context is the Namibian society.

 

G is for getaway.

Ministry is collecting alphabets based on reals events in the society.

Viva ABC!

R is for Robbery is one of our favourite design products. It creates a cosy atmosphere in the flat.