the bubble project is brilliant… (thanks to kester for the link)
ads dominate the skylines, walls, magazines and so on. i dread to think how many ads i pass in london every day without choosing whether i want to look at them. it’s a monologue. well bubble project opens up a fun and creative way of talking back, turning the monologue into a dialogue. download some bubble sticker templates, glue them on to ads, let others fill in the bubbles and photograph the results. the web site has photos from new york in various themed sections. it is of course vandalism and you could get fined. the one below is from the religious section…
I saw this picture and wondered, what on earth is this about?! It all sounds pretty cool in terms of being a very dramatic and innovative idea. But hey! Wake up people!! Vandalism is wrong whatever way you look at it. It’s damaging somebody else’s property! Excuse the exclamation marks, but as a Christian myself, I couldn’t possibly justify doing something like that. We are all called to love our neighbour as ourselves. How does that involve making them angry by defacing their adverts? This idea is going to strengthen the growing lack of respect for the Christian religion which leads to persecution. Christians were never called to force their beliefs on others. When they do, it creates anger and rejection. To give people an opportunity to equate Christians with vandalism as well as arrogance, pride and self-righteousness is only going add to the secular attitudes of governments.
I have a lot more to say on this point but I think I will leave it there. We need to respect other people’s property even if we don’t like it. I personally hate the commercialism and materialism in our culture, but that doesn’t mean I can tear down the billboards. Being a Christian and having faith that only your religion has the truth does not mean you should not have any respect for other people’s beliefs. There are plenty of other ways to battle materialism.