Pura Vida

‘Pura Vida’ is a Costa Rican phrase meaning ‘Good Life’.  It is a reflection of the Costa Rican way of being (the only country ever to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and who have no army). They also have another saying, ‘If you have a church, a bar and a football pitch, then you have a town’.

These two ideas form the basis for S Mark Gubb's commission for Hinterland. Taking the idea of Pura Vida as a naïve utopia, Gubb presents his engagement with 30 individual representatives of different Nottingham communities. Using familiar advertising techniques he will introduce a wider public to the idea of Pura Vida and encourages recipients of his simple flyer produced for the project to identify their own utopic vision.

Alongside this process, Gubb has commissioned texts around ideas of Pura Vida including writings by K Punk (AKA Mark Fisher), Colin Perry and Chris Fite-Wassilak. They will be displayed for two weeks at a time on a billboard at the junction of Pennyfoot and Manvers Streets in Sneinton, Nottingham. Pura Vida texts will also be printed on flyers and distributed throughout the city.

Launch: Wednesday 26th August. See events section for more information.

This work will be available for sale as a limited edition presentation comprising all 3 texts and 30 flyers.  For sales please visit www.hinterlandprojects.com or call 07914 504660