Poster Campaign Plein Theater
Public space as a stage
Plein Theater is a podium for the young and old, focusing specifically on the enormous wealth of diversity in its immediate surroundings of East Amsterdam: experienced and inexperienced theatre-goers, across all educational and economic backgrounds. Plein Theater creates a single community in which the bubbles of target groups dissolve, searching for common ground through an art form or theme. In collaboration with Plein Theater, Studio Matusiak has created campaign images in the form of rebuses referring to the programs. The images are used on the various channels that link to each other, and are also distributed as posters throughout the city. The posters are not only seen as advertising, but as works of art in themselves. By exhibiting them throughout the city, the posters come to be a stage. The images are also distributed as flyers and postcards; because of the originality and artistic quality they catch the eye, captivate, and are taken. More importantly, they become a fixture in the finder’s mind!
“In this series I decided to cast everyday people as models and not have them look straight at the camera, having them instead figure as ‘coat racks’ for the attributes that do the storytelling and deliver the message. Therefore all ‘models’ have objects covering their eyes as an experiment to see if the absence of eye contact can have a powerful effect in a poster image.”
First of a series of eight posters created for Plein Theater. The poster was created in January 2020 just before the Covid-19 crisis hit. It was the first of what was to become a series, and was intended as a jigsaw of different cultures and traditions. Over the course of the year it became Plein Theater’s Covid-19 image.
Winner Gold European Design Awards 2021 | Category Poster Series
Creative direction and design: Paulina Matusiak – Studio Matusiak
Photography: Paulina Matusiak & Eddy Wenting