Euro May Day

William Thake sends notice of this spectacular image promoting EuroMayDay 2005:

See a bigger JPEG here or download a high rez PDF here (1.5 Mb, zipped).

The central image is drawn from a Chinese new year poster from the early 1970’s, celebrating both scientific prowess and folkloric tradition.

It’s interesting that the same image works for both Chinese statism and European anti-statism. Both are exuberant, celebratory, futurist, and utopian. But the European image is more self-consciously ‘kitsch’ than the Chinese. Is the European use ironic? Perhaps a comment on globalization? Kinda ambiguous, but it looks like fun.

A map of May Day events around Europe is posted here.