Automobile company Smart will introduce its creative anthology, “sideways. a Smart art project,” on March 19, 2008 in New York. The book picks up on the brand’s philosophy of questioning generally accepted ideas. The collection includes work by 100 international artists and creative minds, and seeks to evaluate the way we think about the environment and mobility in the here and now.

The artists present work from the fields of photography, illustration, graphic design, painting, sculpture, architecture, styling, hairstyling and make-up over 248 pages, providing an aesthetic cross-section of modern-day pop culture and making creative statements about how we can promote greener modes of transportation.

The international Trend Magazines acted as curator for the project, and the book itself was produced by the Gestalten Verlag, a Berlin publishing house, in conjunction with smart.

Developing greener urban transportation for the future is one of the Smart brand’s primary goals, which explains why the manufacturer has been producing the series vehicle with the lowest CO2 emissions in the world for many years now.

The “sideways” project will be accompanied by an international marketing campaign and will seek to underline smart’s view that it is possible to act ecologically without remotely neglecting aesthetic design concerns.

Anders Sundt Jensen, Head of Marketing and Sales at smart, explained the motivation behind the project: “sideways looks at the issue of ecology in a new creative context, and it should therefore generate some interesting new takes on the topic. And this is a key motivation behind the approach of Smart itself.”
sideways will be presented officially at its U.S. launch on March 19 in New York and will subsequently be available in bookshops and through the dvg Verlag at €29.90 per copy.