This poster is the work of Greek artist Maria Papaefstathiou – this is her story of how she fell
in love with Jamaica and Jamaican culture.
I got involved with Jamaica, its culture and music in 2011. I’m a visual artist based in Athens and I met Jamaican artist Michael ‘Freestylee’ Thompson online when I was searching for unique and eye-catching posters to share on my blog, Graphic Arts News.
Very soon, he told me about his vision to see a grand museum on reggae in the city of its birth, Kingston. He conceived it as the Reggae Hall of Fame Museum and Performance Centre.
Michael wanted to find a way to start a conversation with the world about his vision. He started designing posters about it. Many people all over the world saw the posters and assumed that the building already existed! From those conceptual posters, the idea flourished. Michael concluded that the ideal medium for his mission would be a Poster Competition that would attract designers and artists from all over the world to create and share their love for reggae through art.
While I was involved in the reggae posters, I started reading more about Jamaica and Jamaican culture and I began my own poster project depicting Jamaican culture and reggae music. I did a series of portraits and one of my favorites is this one of Miss Lou.
In December 2011 we launched our first International Reggae Poster Contest and received more than 1150 posters created by 678 designers from 80 countries. Since then, every year we have received more than 1200 posters from 75 to 80 countries, with more than 700 designers participating. The posters are judged online by a distinguished jury panel that consists of 21 well-known designers from various countries, such as Mexico, Italy, Greece, the USA, Canada, England, China, Israel, Bolivia and, of course, Jamaica.
In 2012 the winner came from Israel, in 2013 from UK, in 2014 from Sweden, in 2015 from Iran, 2016 from Russia and 2017 from Bolivia. This underlines the positive message of Jamaica’s popular culture. I am a witness to the power of Jamaican music to bring people and cultures together in a spirit of mutual appreciation and respect. And for that, I give nuff, nuff thanks!
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See and buy Maria’s posters at: https://www.itsjustme.net/all-posters/posters-on-jamaica/
The 25th Art of Reggae Exhibition is currently on display at
the National Gallery of Jamaica, in Kingston. The exhibition
showcases the top 100 entries to the 2018 International Reggae Poster Contest and runs February through May, 2019. https://www.reggaepostercontest.com/
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