Vote: A very small word with huge potential

The role of decent art in any democracy is to critically challenge, inspire, educate and to help us look at life in a fresh and exciting way.

Art motivates our consciousness to explore fresh perspectives and offers us different insights into our everyday lives and issues that affect us.

Whilst the thought of democracy and voting may not get some of us out of bed in the morning, the relationship between art and politics is a long and fascinating one.

And right on cue, for our own elections comes UK artists, Bob & Roberta Smith, Jeremy Deller, Janette Parris and Fatima Begum. They have come together to create works incorporating the word 'vote'.

Such a small four-letter word, that can have a big influence on the lives of our communities, assumes a greater potency in these artworks.

Their plan is to redecorate the language of democracy, out of party political corporate blandness and reclaim the idea and the notion of participatory democracy.

There idea is to exhibit their work on over 100 billboard sites across the country, print 100,000 post cards and unleash a social media viral campaign. They also intend to exhibit the artworks in South London Peckham Platform.

One of the artworks will be selected through open competition. If you're 18 - 23 and can create a new artwork, you could win five hundred smackeroo's and see your work in lights! The deadline is March 16th so get cracking.

To do that they are crowdsourcing funding for the project to raise a modest £15,000. It's a great idea and one that we support wholeheartedly. Let's get behind them and make this happen.

Lee Jasper