Underground non-propaganda movement originating from (and most often found in) Stockholm, Sweden. Shares some of its basic ideas with Shepard Fairey's Andre has a Posse campaign.

Typical messages include posters saying "I want my planet back" and "Akayism - part of the solution" (although the problem is never defined, or even mentioned) along with black and white fifties government propaganda imagery as well as various ad hoc displays of painted context-free cryptic messages and replacement of regular commercial messages with akayisms.

www.akayism.org

This "movement" is actually, as far as I've heared, one man who goes by the name of Akay. What he, and many others, do is often referred to as streetart. Swedish radio channel p3 had a show on Akayism and although most of it was probably orchestrated irony by the man himself, to create yet more confusion, I got a feeling he wants people to look up and to start questioning things. The evil ways of commercialism that has most of us was also mentioned a couple of times.

Akayisms can be spotted in cities around the world from time to time, but they are likely to be evident in Akay's home town of Stockholm. Allthough posters with the recognizable planet image are often seen, pieces are of highly varied styles. I've seen small plates organized and put up on buildings with putty to form words like "Akayism" and "Think!", stickers on poles and roadsigns, faces, words and formations spray-painted over cut-out models, funny alterations to advertisment posters and so on. Sizes vary from tiny-small to huge pretentious arrangements. One of these huge pieces was once evident on the side of a freeway just north of Stockholm in the form of black and white letters measuring about 1 x 10 meters sized and spelling "Akayism".

If you want to support Akayism you can do so by buying highly over-priced posters and gear at the Akayism website (akayism.org).

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