The astute visual commentator Tomato Košir never ceases to impress with his design solutions that insightfully and lucidly underscore the multilayered complexity of current socio-political events. Marked by his prompt and apposite responsiveness and highly creative visual solutions, his works – whether they aim to criticize, praise, agitate, or call to humanitarian action – underscore the power of agency and encourage individuals to be socially critical vis-à-vis current world events.

Tomato Košir and his project sramota (disgrace or shame) were presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova (+MSUM) in 2020 in the Commentary series of mini exhibitions that allows artists to comment, in a variety of media, formats, and ways of expression, on certain crucial moments and developments in the contemporary political landscape worldwide as they are reflected locally.

During the time of Janez Janša’s last government (2020–2022), a deep rift opened up between the Ministry of Culture and its activities on the one hand and most of the spheres of cultural life the Ministry is responsible for on the other. Tomato Košir reacted to the situation by creating the sign sramota (disgrace), derived visually from the recognizable kultura (culture) logo prominently displayed on the Ministry’s glass façade for the last two decades. By appropriating the context of its symbolic structure to inscribe it with a new meaning, Košir established a new relation between the sign designating the place and its context. Through this gesture of alienation, the new logo immediately became a symbol of resistance in the sphere of culture and art.