68. MENDEDESIGN / VOLUME, INC.
After Eric Heiman and Jeremy Mende taught a critical theory class together at CCA, they were interested in putting some of their ideas to work in a collaborative project. When Southern Exposure, a San Francisco alternative gallery space, asked them to promote its 30th anniversary show, Heiman and Mende saw an opportunity.

The show, entitled The Way We Work, featured emerging artists whose work relied on collaboration and public interaction. Heiman, Adam Brodsley (Heiman’s partner at Volume), and Mende wanted to develop a method to promote the show that would engage the audience in a similarly participatory way. “We wanted to remove ourselves from the somewhat self-centered process of creating visuals and design a system that would allow the public to develop the actual graphics for the show,” remembers Mende.

The result was an interactive poster-making kit: 5,000 invitations with five different kiss-cut stencils were mailed to the gallery’s contacts. Recipients were directed to 14 locations throughout the city with walls of pre-hung customizable posters. Over the next two weeks, stenciled bee swarms, steamrollers, briefcases, piano players, and vacuuming office workers sprouted from the blank tiles of color.

The Way We Work broke the gallery’s attendance records and garnered citywide buzz. “The system created its own momentum in a way that a beautiful but cryptic poster wouldn’t have,” says Mende. The project’s impact was so great that it became part of the exhibit: When the show opened, Heiman, Mende, and most importantly the people of San Francisco were all listed on the gallery walls as contributing artists.
Alissa Walker