Posters of the Week

Modern Electric Chair
Juliano Ijichi Machado
Brazil

Requiem para los del 3 de mayo
Vladimir Sabillón
Honduras

JUSTICE/EDALAT
Aida Torkamani Asl
Iran

It must be stopped
Natalia Lazarashvili
Georgia

Death is Not Justice*

The Center for the Study of Political Graphics’ Posters-of-the-Week commemorates October 10, 2010, the 8th World Day Against the Death Penalty.

The death penalty is a violation of human rights, and more than two thirds of countries in the world have banned executions. 58 still persist in killing people in the name of “justice.” In 2009, countries with the highest number of executions were Iran (with at least 388 executions), Iraq (at least 120), Saudi Arabia (at least 69), and the United States (52). In China information regarding the death penalty remains a secret, but according to Amnesty International China executes more people than the rest of the world combined.

Recently retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, 90, said that the lone vote he regrets in his nearly 35 years on the High Court is one that he cast to restore the death penalty in 1976. **

To educate and inspire people to work against the death penalty, we are featuring some amazing posters produced for Poster for Tomorrow, an independent, non-profit organization based in Paris and founded by Hervé Matine. Matine invited Carol Wells, CSPG’s founding director to be one of 100 online international curators to select the top 100 posters out of several thousand submissions. A live jury then picked the 10 winning posters which can be seen at http://www.posterfortomorrow.org/

The ten winning designs will become part of the permanent collection of nine internationally acclaimed design museums. The Center for the Study of Political Graphics will be the only U.S. institution to receive them. The other museums are:

- Dansk Plakatmuseum, Denmark
- Design Museum Gent, Belgium
- Graphic Design Museum, The Netherlands
- Lahti Poster Museum, Finland
- Les Arts Decoratifs, France
- Museum für Gestaltung, Switzerland
- Wilanow Poster Museum, Poland
- Victoria and Albert Museum, England

Most of the activities of Poster for Tomorrow promote active citizenship through the medium of design. They want to encourage people, both those in and outside the design community, to make posters to stimulate debate in the local and international communities on issues that affect us all.

* The title of the anti-death penalty design organized by Poster for Tomorrow .

**For more on Steven’s thoughts on the death penalty and the interview:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130198344

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/04/john-paul-stevenss-one-re_n_749109.html