OPEN

I really like this collaborative art project that Ford is sponsoring, called This is Now…

Here’s how it explains itself:

The project has four stages:

1. Noah Harris, famous for his modern take on stop-motion animation (and director of the Ford Fiesta TV commercial), was asked to commission a series of pieces from some of Europe’s most promising young artists.

2. Contributions were then sought from some of Europe’s most promising art students, who were asked to submit their own interpretation of ‘now’.

3. With professional and student artist works now completed the general public are offered the chance to participate. This is your chance to capture images that define ‘now’ for you and take part in the project.

4. Starting in October, people throughout Europe will be able to visit the Ford website and collate their own definition of ‘now’. They’ll be able to browse the project’s entire collection of images, create a unique mash up and share it with the world.

The project has been made possible with the generous help of Ford, who provided the funds for all of the project stages. As part of their advertising campaign for the Ford Fiesta, they’ll be encouraging people to participate and showcasing a selection of the images to the wider European public.

This is going to be interesting to watch unfold…

There’s a fine line between cheesy brand-promotion and actually doing useful things, seeing where they’ll take you once you’re engaged. It’s great to see projects like this where brands are – for now – on the right side of that line. Just out-of-control enough, just the right tone of voice (helps having someone like Kai Chan Vong, an apparent web renaissance man) curating the blog too…

: : Robin Grant told me about this a little while back, but it’s taken a trans-Atlantic trip and jet-lag induced early-morning-ism to let me have the time to have a good root round. Robin recently(ish) started We are Social, a “conversation agency” by their own description, and are starting / encouraging conversations around this project.