Launched by artist-activist Mirko Ilic, The Tolerance Project seeks to raise awareness of intolerance and to foster positive change among people everywhere. Cooper Union is now showcasing a selection of posters by contributing artists from around the globe in the colonnade windows of Cooper’s Foundation Building. Mirko joined me this week for a conversation about this ongoing project that so far has placed 130 shows in 39 countries. 

Peggy Roalf: Where did the idea for this long-running project originate?

Mirko Ilic: For a few years, I had been volunteering my graphic design services to two film festivals of tolerance. One in Zagreb Croatia, the other in Ljubljana, Slovenia. I even went beyond that, doing fundraising for both of them. 

To show their appreciation, the festival in Ljubljana offered me a small public square with 24 stanchions for posters and told me if I wanted, I could exhibit my work there. I didn't feel that was the right thing to do because I had volunteered my work and I didn't expect anything in return. But now I was suddenly getting "paid" by having a space and a show. Because the festival was titled "House of Tolerance Festival", I decided to organize a show about Tolerance. I invited 23 artists from around the world to create posters on the subject. The only requirement was that the word "tolerance" should be written in their native language and they needed to sign their names and show their countries of origin. I used one of the stanchions for posting information about the show and the artists who were participating.

Luckily, we managed to replace them with new ones and used all of this to show the lack of tolerance worldwide. After seeing the impact of the show and the quality of the posters, I decided to ask more artists to participate and take the show on the road. And with every new show, I invited the most prominent artist from that region to contribute their work. Today I have over 180 posters from artists in 50 different countries. 

PR: “Tolerance” isn’t such a big ask—in the way that, say, “love thy neighbor” might be. So why is it such a difficult subject for so many people?

MI: Belonging to the "wrong" tribe is the most common cause for intolerance. Problems arise when people discriminate against others for having the "wrong" skin colour, having the "wrong" sexual orientation, or believing in the "wrong" religion. Notice that most of these reasons are determined at birth and not something a person necessarily chooses. In a way, it's like saying people can't accept how you are born as if it was better that you never existed. Isn’t that horrible

I think these "intolerable" aspects make up just 10% of our differences. On the whole, in 90% of cases, we are the same: We want to love, to be loved, feel secure. We want work, food, water, and a roof over our heads. We want a long life for ourselves and for our children.

PR: What have you found to be the most common differences that cause people, as both individuals and as groups, to be intolerant?

MI: Very often that is caused by justifying anger, anger caused by a feeling of deprivation from some basic necessities that I mentioned before. And that anger is very often manipulated and misdirected. "Divide and conquer" by politicians and religious extremists. All you need to do is to empower one group versus another, then you will have intolerance.  

PR: It seems that the world has become more intolerant in recent years, not less. Can you point to any particular social trends that have caused so much discord?

MI: There are always multiple reasons for that. But mostly it is the fear in people, fear for the future and the economic fear. These fears are always used by politicians and religious fanatics. Throughout history, using these fears brought power to strongmen/dictators that didn't want tolerance or democracy. And these fears are exacerbated by this uncertain Covid time.

 PR: Who was the first artist you engaged for the project?

MI: When I came up with the idea to create the Tolerance Poster Show in Ljubljana, I had less than three weeks to put the show together. I went to Milton Glaser. We had studios in the same building. I explained to him the idea, and told him that I was going to use him as a "bait." I told him that if he was the first one to create a Tolerance poster, I could include his poster in the emails to invite the other 22 artists, telling them that Milton Glaser already did the poster. By the next day, Milton designed a poster for me and everything else is history. 

Two years later, when I decided to establish the non-profit organization Tolerance Project Inc., I asked Milton to create the logo for it. He was kind enough to do it. This was one of the last logos he designed (below).  

PR: Could you describe the logistics of organizing the first 129 shows in so many cities? 
MI: The process of making the show is very simple. We send low-res files of the posters to the organizers. They choose a certain number of posters depending on the size of their space. Then they send me a list of selections. I check the list just to be sure that all aspects of tolerance are represented in the selection. Then I send high-res files back to the organizers for printing. If the organizers have financial problems, I can sometimes help fund the printing costs. 

In four years, I managed to organize 129 shows around the world but none in New York, where I live. This show at Cooper Union happened mainly because of Sasha Tochilovsky, who heads Cooper Union’s Herb Lubalin Study Center. In our conversation about design, he asked me why I had never presented a Tolerance Poster show in New York and if I was interested, he could talk to people at Cooper to put up a show in their windows. As of today, the show is up. 

I really hope it's the first of many more to come. Otherwise, it's very hard for me to explain how in the past five years I managed to have thirteen shows in Croatia, which is a small country with a population of four million people, but only eleven shows in the US with a population of 330 million people. Does that mean Croatians care more about tolerance than Americans?

PR: Will there be any online programs for people who can’t get to NYC for this installation?

MI: Besides the Tolerance Project website, I am avoiding online programs because the medium of the poster doesn’t lend itself to the flat screen. Posters are meant to be big, out on the street or in public spaces. They just don’t come off at 2 by 5 inches on a smartphone. That's not doing justice to the visual messages of the posters. 

Recently there have been many poster shows in galleries. That's perfectly reasonable if somebody is showing old and valuable posters. But I am interested showing them to passersby on their way to work, school or supermarket. That's the true audience for this work. If somebody would like to see the posters in person, they can always organize a Tolerance Poster show in their city!

Q: Where and when is the next installment of the Tolerance Project to be?

MI: The next show will be in Shanghai, China. 

The Cooper Union Foundation Building is at 7 Cooper Square, 7 East 7^th Street [between 3^rd and 4^th Avenues, NY, NY Info Images courtesy of Mirko Ilic and The Cooper Union School of Art.

Note: The installation includes several Cooper Union alumni, lecturers, and instructors, including Milton Glaser ’51, Seymour Chwast ’51, Sagi Haviv ’03, Paula Scher, Steff Geissbühler, Woody Pirtle, Bob Gill, Ed Fella, Alain Le Quernec, and Saki Mafundikwa.