Poster Competition „Age-friendly Living“

When we’re young, and we were all young once, we give little thought to growing old. And why should we? It’s a long way away. “What’s old age got to do with me?” they say, and as we know it is the prerogative of the young to ask difficult questions. Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach offers an answer: “Old age either transfigures or fossilizes.”
But sooner or later old age concerns us all, as the young will come to know as they grow older themselves. Its onset is certain; it is, after all, a perfectly natural phenomenon that can neither be halted nor avoided. 
This is what makes a poster competition so direct. It doesn’t address “society in general” that “has to change”; it speaks to each and every one of us, directly and personally. The poster competition serves primarily as a means of communicating the need and conditions for age-friendly living using a new visual aesthetic and clear, unmistakable formal language along with modern artistic motifs to anchor a clear message in the mind of the viewer. The intention of the posters is therefore to stimulate people to think about what an adequate, barrier-free living environment entails – not just for old people general but also in personal and practical terms for their own living situation.

The sanitation industry already produces numerous products and concepts that enable individuals to create their own conditions for personal and physical autonomy in the future. Making use of these possibilities and incorporating these into our own, individual life planning is not a matter for society in general but something that each and every one of us can and should take into our hands as part of making provisions for our own future.

This poster competition uses the means of art and aesthetics to raise awareness of and communicate the numerous issues of living in old age. It addresses people of all ages and attempts to make younger people aware of the central importance of making provisions for old age.

Finally, I would like to end with a poignant thought from Cicero: “Not old age is the problem, but how we approach it.“