Item MM 153101 Poster - Isol-Aid Online Music Festival, Edition1, Designed by Sebastian White, Mar 2020

Summary

Isol-Aid online music festival poster design 'Together on our own! A socially (media-) distanced music festival' by artist and graphic designer Sebastian White, featuring a package of toilet paper rendered in light blue with red text. This design directly references panic buying and subsequent grocery shortages in Victoria which emerged at the beginning of the pandemic and Stay at Home Public Health Orders.

Physical Description

Colour digital poster.

Significance

The Isol-Aid poster collection is a visual representation of innovative music festival Isol-Aid, founded and based in Melbourne in direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic as it unfolded in 2020, and its impact on the local music community. These posters provide a rich historical document of contemporary practicing performing artists, many of whom are Victorian based, at this moment in time. The designs also include visual representations of items related to daily life during pandemic restrictions. From an artistic perspective, the designs are highly effective, vibrant and meaningful composition, carring rich potential for interpretaion now, and into the future.

Artist Sebastian White has developed a recognisable visual style for the festival, drawing on a nostalgic packaging design aesthetic, which is evident across the vast array of posters created through 2020. White's designs respond to the impact of the pandemic on daily life with poignancy and humour, creating a new topical visual concept each week. Designs have included references to panic buying, essential grocery items, take away food, sanitisation products, home hair dye, parcel delivery, colouring in, gardening, home exercise, jigsaws, mask wearing and Victoria's Stage 4 restrictions on movement.

Isol-Aid Festival founder, director and programmer Emily Ulman, is a musician, educator, festival curator and music booker, based in Melbourne. The festival was conceived in response to the impact of pandemic restrictions on the Australian music community. The cancelling of events and closure of music venues due to social distancing requirements implemented to stop the spread of COVID-19 in Australia, had a devastating financial and social impact on the Victorian music community. Performing artists and music workers lost income and career opportunties through the cancellation of performance bookings, national and international tours, recording studio bookings and residencies.

The festival arose initially to raise funds for Support Act, "Australia's only not-for-profit organisation to provide relief for musicians and music industry workers facing physical or mental health issues, or financial hardship", and to connect artists and audiences through an online performance experience.

Melbourne is recognised as the live music capital of the world (ABC: Melbourne Live Music Census 2017), and the local music community is valued for the significant cultural, social and economic contribution it makes to the state of Victoria. These posters, as respresentations of the festival, are an expression of the music community's response to issues affecting the livelihood and mental health of artists during the pandemic.