The Archive of Public Protests

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The Archive of Public Protests (A-P-P)

web design

The website was commissioned by the photographers' collective. It aims to share and archive photos documenting public protests from 2015 till the present. In recent years, increased social activity caused by internal and external events has often provoked expressive reactions of people going out to the streets, wanting to shout their arguments. Documenting these behaviors, at least in our opinion, has become a manifestation of humanism, interest in a human being at a moment important from the point of view of an individual and a group that fights for a common goal. Beautiful, mesmerizing photos that may become icons of our times.

Our goal as designers was to create a site that connects water with fire. On the one hand, the project functions under the name of the archive, a place associated with a precise description of the collection. On the other hand, it is an archive of protests, fervent manifestations of beliefs in public space. The answer to this specific brief was a combination of a clean layout with elements associated with counterculture: a stencil font, visuals based on a stochastic raster. In this project, we wanted to meet what is clean in design with what is dirty and chaotic.

2020

The Archive brings together visual traces of social activism, grassroots initiatives opposing not just political decisions but also breaches of democratic norms and human rights. It is a collection of images that constitute a warning against rising right wing populism and discrimination in the broadest sense of the term: xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, and also the climate crisis. In establishing the Archive, its creators wish to prolong the life of their images, which are connected with specific events, and whose existence ends with their publication in the press. The APP gathers together photographs in a single, easily accessible collection, which will remain accessible to researchers, artists, and activists. Additionally, use of the Archive’s resources will be open to all users who express a desire to communicate the values with which its creators identify.