The organizers of the 2nd International Reggae Poster Contest 2013 (IRPC) are pleased to announce a new call for poster entries starting on December 23, 2012, and closing on March 30, 2013. Winning posters will be selected by a jury of international design professionals and will be published in a catalogue/book, exhibited and auctioned.
This contest builds on the 1st highly successful 2012 poster contest, with exhibitions held in Kingston, Jamaica, and Athens, Greece, and Spain (Rototom Sunsplash 2012). This inaugural contest received over 1,142 outstanding posters from 80 countries with Alon Braier of Israel winning the top prize for his iconic poster titled “Alon Braier.”
The founders of the International Reggae Poster Contest are Michael Thompson, a Jamaican living in the United States, and Maria Papaefstathiou from Athens, Greece. They are confident the 2013 contest will receive even more submissions than the 2012 contest by reaching out to more designers across the globe to encourage increased participation and extend the contest’s global footprint.
Reggae music is one of the world’s few living folk music genres. It has remained incredibly popular and spontaneously generated by people’s experiences, emotions and traditions. Rising from humble Jamaican roots, Reggae has grown to influence many cultures in its wake and has left an irrefutable mark on entertainment.
The 2nd International Reggae Poster Contest 2013 seeks to build positive awareness for Reggae music and celebrate the global achievements of Reggae and its impact on the world. In this contest, the term Reggae encompasses all popular Jamaican musical genres: Ska, Rocksteady, Roots Reggae, Dub, Dancehall and the unique Jamaican Sound System. This initiative will rebrand the creative visual aesthetic of reggae on a global scale. The 2013 contest promises to achieve outstanding results in quality designs from both contestants and contributors with more exhibitions and auctions to establish a Frank Gehry designed Reggae Hall of Fame Museum and performance center in Kingston, Jamaica, and to raise funds for our two charities: the Alpha Boys’ School and HELP Jamaica!
Our main objective—the establishment of a Frank Gehry designed Reggae Hall of Fame Museum and performance center in Kingston, Jamaica—intends to encapsulate all the achievements of Reggae in contemporary iconic architecture. The Reggae Hall of Fame will be a monument to the achievements of Jamaica’s popular music and culture. The mission of The Reggae Hall of Fame will be to collect, conserve, and exhibit the treasures of Reggae music as well as narrate the stories from a variety of perspectives in the context of the music’s history, and reach a broad and diverse audience internationally. This museum will be the world’s first museum of this magnitude, celebrating the living heritage of Reggae music.
The Reggae Poster Contest will also raise funds to support the amazing work of a historic and inspiring Jamaican institution, the Alpha Boys’ School. The Alpha Boys’ School is a jewel in the center of Kingston, shining on Jamaica through the music its graduates create that spreads throughout the world. Alpha’s decades of success with young Jamaicans entering Alpha raw and eager to learn, and emerging as world-renown musicians is testimony to Alpha’s success. Without this amazing institution and its successful music program, Ska, Rocksteady, Dub, and Roots Reggae music may not have been invented. The first IRPC exhibition and auction held at the National Gallery of Jamaica in November 2012 raised over US $6,000 for the Alpha Boys’ School. We hope to raise more needed funds through other auctions planned in Jamaica and internationally in 2013.
In 2013 we will add a second charity to our effort, HELP Jamaica!, a non-profit organization (registered 2008 in Berlin, Germany). This organization was established to support independent educational institutions in the poorest areas of Jamaica and provide primarily children and young people with free access to books, learning materials, and computers under the guidance of trained personnel.
For more information, please visit the IRPC website at:
Link: http://www.reggaepostercontest.com
