“Swastika my love” is a social art project I began in 2013. The project has never seen the light, mainly because I lost motivation and gave priority to other passions.
The project in brief:
The “swastika”, a thousand-year old solar symbol, born to carry well-being and wealth, has been stolen from humanity during the 20th century in the name of thirst for power and domination. We want to return it to the world full to the brim with love and contribute to healing the wounds which in its name have been impressed upon our memory. How? With an interactive and social project on the web… by inviting thousands of artists from every part of the world to create thousands of joyful swastikas to free ourselves from the ghosts of the past. The final stages of the project will be a web portal, a book and a traveling exhibit.
Below you can see some graphics I designed to promote the first stage of the project:
Curiosity:
I had in mind to use these materials as rewards for the funders of the crowdfunding campaign, so I tried to create products in the major print on demand sites (Zazzle, Cafepress, Society6) but everytime my graphics have been blocked due to the presence of the swastika symbol in it, even if it was being used with a clear “positive” intent.
In each case even after explaining in detail the project to these sites support departments, they still refused to accept my graphics for the following reason:
due to the immediate association with hate that the swastika represents; we have made the decision to put into effect a near complete ban on the use of the swastika image.