Vancouver Opera conducts Stickboy campaign
By Adnews Staff
Vancouver Opera has begun a campaign promoting its production of Stickboy, an opera addressing the issue of bullying. The campaign, developed by DDB Canada, makes use of street art installations in an effort to promote the production to a younger audience. Four Vancouver artists, Nick Gregson, Carson Ting, Ben Tour and Ola Volo, have created murals that depict bullies as large graffiti shadows. Each includes the copy, "There's a monster in all of us. The campaign also includes posters and a website at <http://www.stickboyopera.ca> at which visitors can submit their own artwork or stories about bullying. The campaign will run until Nov. 7.
"To reinvent opera, we wanted to emphasize its role in expressing issues that are important to people and to their communities," said Cosmo Campbell, chief creative officer at DDB Canada. "That's when we realized that street art might be the perfect medium to talk about this production. Merging street art with opera may at first feel dichotomous but it is actually giving Vancouverites an entirely new perspective from which to be inspired. Vancouver's creative community were eager to jump on board and experiment with these two genres to demonstrate that we all have the potential to be a bully."