Public Voting Now Through July 27 to Select 50 Winners of My Yard Our Message Political Yard Sign Competition

Yard signs are as ubiquitous and familiar to the American political landscape as baby-kissing and stump speeches, combining catchy images and pithy campaign slogans to increase visibility for vying candidates and their parties’ messages.

In honor of this election season,

My Yard Our Message

(myyardourmessage.com) turns this tradition of political ephemera on its ear with a unique national competition putting the message and the creative design for political yard signs in the hands of artists and then—in true democratic fashion—inviting the public’s vote to determine a selection of 50 winners, whose designs will be made available to order as full-sized political yard signs. Public voting on yard sign entrants takes place through July 27, 2008, at myyardourmessage.com. The winning designs will be announced August 1, 2008, and subsequently made available to order for $20, including shipping. Top designs will be available as free downloads. In addition, the Walker Art Center and mnartists.org will print the winning yard sign creations and place them in neighborhoods throughout the Twin Cities metro area, including those immediately surrounding the site of the Republican National Convention. St. Paul neighborhoods that will serve as outdoor sign galleries include Dayton’s Bluff, sponsored by the District 4 Community Council, and the West Side, sponsored by the West Side Citizens Organization. Posters will be on view at the Walker as well.

My Yard Our Message, a project conceived by Scott Sayre, is produced by the Walker Art Center and mnartists.org in collaboration with The UnConvention (theunconvention.com), a non-partisan collective of citizens and cultural institutions assembled to create a forum for a democratic and free exchange of ideas during and after the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, from September 1–4, 2008.