BORA, FRANCE
Currently based in France, multidisciplinary artist BORA (aka Pauline Canavesio) is known for an amorphous practice spanning music, poetry and – most relevant in this instance – 3D and digital design. The artist’s elaborate characters ooze and balloon in bubblegum pinks, deep purples and sky-like cyans. Despite their surreally synthetic aesthetic, there is a fleshy quality to these characters – suggesting that they’re not quite alien but, instead, a maximalist exploration of our post-gender, post-corporeal bodies.
For our fortieth anniversary, BORA brought their shape-shifting creative powers to the GT logo – delivering a bulbous, glossy pink font adorned with crustacean-esque, multicoloured sea creatures, all set against a calming seaside backdrop.
If your piece had a title, what would it be?
It would probably be something like, “Mirror my soul, you liquid star”.
What do the words GAY and TIMES mean to you?
Fluidity, space to explore all the dimensions one can have and getting closer to oneself and others. It should always be gay times.
What kind of art do you want to be creating in forty years?
Art that can be felt, that’s alive, impermanent and shapeshifting in synchronicity with the inner seasons of the heart.
What message do you want to send with your redesign?
Hope and tenderness. I chose water as a symbol because it mirrors, it reflects, it moves constantly in a flow, it is fluid. It always finds its path and can’t be caged. The characters around the logo are little guardians, little souls looking at you saying: ‘We are here, we feel and joy is our revolt’.
What about the queer community inspires your practice?
Our paths and our stories. The desire to embrace and follow our core and create representation. Our vibrant vision and will to exist beyond all the lines.
