Cecile Lennerts

Unitéenheid




is a project to promote unity between the Belgians. The context of this project is the political crisis in Belgium. The aim is to make the people react to this crisis and let them act for unity and not to have to suffer the conflicts between the politicians. The tool to reach this objective is a competition that encourages people to gather and that highlights the benefit of multiculturalism.

I chose to do my major project about this issue because I think that the split would be tragic for our culture and this would spread a very negative message. I think that unity is powerful and that it is essential to learn how to live together in peace with people who speak a different language and develop various cultural feelings whose complementary input should be highlighted.
The objectives of this project are: to promote unity by building links between Belgians from different parts of the country; to use design as a tool to gather people; and to empower people to act for the country they want to be part of. Here is a brief summary of the major project I did for my MA in Design for Development at Kingston University (2010).

Unitéenheid is a competition of the longest chain of postcard with balloons. The aim is to create links between people who don’t know each other, people who didn’t choose each other; but who have the same will to be united.

First step of the competition: The persons willing to take part in the competition will use the Unitéenheid kit which is made up of postcards and stickers. The participants will paste the chosen sticker (or a sticker designed by themselves) on the front of the postcard and write their name and email on the back. Then, they will attach the postcard to a balloon and send it in the air. The stickers show different typical elements of the Belgian culture. The participants will be encouraged to design their own stickers, to let them express what they want to highlight about the Belgian culture.

Second step of the competition: When the balloon ends its journey in the air, it will fall on the ground or somewhere else; and hopefully someone will find the postcard attached to the balloon and continue the chain with the same postcard (s)he found. This person will again add another sticker on the front of the postcard, write his/her name at the back and release the postcard in the air with a new balloon. This will continue until the end of the month of the competition. Of course, some balloons will be lost, but some will continue their way between heaven and earth. In order to make this competition work, a lot of people have to take part in it. As for unity, people have to unite their power to make it work.

The idea of putting stickers together is to portray a way of building unity from different elements.

This way of sending postcards is uncertain like the future of Belgium: today, we cannot say that our country will be alive forever, but it is possible to make it last for some time.
The balloon delivers an important message in this project: it does not care about the boundaries; it shows the absurdity of dividing land and people with frontiers.
The last step before the final event: At the end of the month of the competition, all the people who will have a found postcard in their possession, will contact all the other persons who would have written their name at the back of the postcard to warn them that the chain is not lost and that they might win the competition.
The final event will be the prize giving and a way to gather all the participants of the competition. It will enable people to meet the persons who took part in their chain in a friendly atmosphere. Two different prizes will be given. One of them is for the nicest postcard, and the other one is for the longest chain. Each participant of the winning chain will receive the same prize.

Whatever happens in Belgium (the unity, an ongoing political chaos or the split), the universal message of this project is that we need each other, even the people we do not know, to live a happy and peaceful life. The split is not the only thing to fear, what we need to avoid is to live separately as if we were two countries in one, that is what I want to achieve with this project: to create links between people and to make them conscious that we can count on each other.