2015

Propaganda Station

Propaganda Station aims to make visible the various contemporary propagandas that actively shape our world today. The central installation is designed as an inverted panopticon: instead of surveilling the visitor, it provides the viewer a position of counter-surveillance over the work of propagandists that influence our everyday life. The Propaganda Station consists of various “cells.” Each cell introduces a different contemporary propaganda, such as Ultra Nationalist Propaganda, Alt-Right Propaganda, Liberal Propaganda, Financialisation Propaganda, Empire Propaganda, Climate Propaganda and Geological Propaganda. Overseeing these different propaganda cells, the viewer becomes part of a reversed balance of power: now it is them surveilling the propagandists, instead of the other way around. At the center of the installation is a “propaganda school,” where different artists, academics, journalists, theorists, campaigners and activists give lectures, workshops and trainings in the field of propaganda analysis, and (counter)propaganda work. The term “station” in the Propaganda Station, can be read in multiple ways. The exhibition-project operates as a place where different propaganda models are “stationed.” Through the propaganda school, it is also a station that researches and transmits alternative narratives and ideas about the meaning of propaganda, its history, and its present-day application.

Jonas Staal

Ostrava, Czech Republic
Climate Propaganda / Narrative Power