The Tolerance Traveling Poster Show was started by graphic designer Mirko Ilić. The Bosnian-born, New York based artist has experience that ranges from comics, illustrations, art-directed posters, books, and record covers. When he arrived in America he became the art director of Time Magazine International Edition, he later went on to become the art director of the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times. With the Tolerance Travelling Poster Show, Ilić wanted to find a way to get artists involved in helping to promote tolerance across the world. He invited graphic designers from all over the world to each contribute a poster that is an interpretation of the word tolerance in their language.

The exhibition now includes the work of some of the world’s most noted graphic designers including those from the African continent like Brandt Botha, Garth Walker, Saki Mafundikwa and Chaz Maviyane-Davies.Today the exhibition has grown into a worldwide event that has been held in places like the US, Slovenia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia, Spain, Holland, Turkey, Ukraine and the Dominican Republic. For Ilić, the what is important about the nomadic poster show is that it also move art from being something that can only be accessed through art galleries and museum spaces.

He believes art should be more accessible to the public by also showing it in public areas from parks, to shopping malls and other such areas where possible. The Tolerance Travelling Poster Show made its African debut at the Design Indaba Conference 2018, where attendees got to engage with the posters as part of an outside pop-up gallery. South African graphic designer and illustrator, Brandt Botes, was the artist whose poster was added and shown at Design Indaba for the first time. Botes created a yellow poster that features the term “verdraag saamheid” which means tolerance in Afrikaans.

In each new exhibition new posters are added to the collection, and now the exhibition is travelling to Durban, home of contributor Garth Walker, where it will be shown at the KZNSA Gallery in partnership with Design Indaba. Ilić believes that designers and artists have a role in helping to create more tolerance in the world.