

The 2012 Olympics have finally arrived in London and with it came a sweep of Olympic-themed art, celebrating the games and the athletes participating in them. Artists continue to churn out new works idolizing the Olympians and the varied sports competitions in the summer games, but one artist named Gustavo Sousa has chosen to focus on the Olympic rings themselves to give some insight on global issues. Sousa says, “The rings represent healthy competition and union, but we know the world isn't perfect. Maybe understanding the differences is the first step to try to make things more equal.”

The Brazilian creative director at Mother London uses the five colorful rings, representing each of the five continents taking part in the games every four years, to display a series of informative graphs about the world we live in today. The topics range from general facts like the world's population to staggering statistics that reveal the ratio of people living with HIV, as symbolized by the size of the circle representing their continental location.

The eye-opening project that's known simply as oceaniaeuropeamericasafricaasia includes a total of 16 prints to represent each day of the Olympics. Initially, the artist never revealed a key for the infographics, saying “You can almost figure that out as you read through; I thought that process of discovery was interesting.” If you're interested in figuring out which continent each color is representing on your own, skip over the next paragraph and take a look at the re-sized rings for yourself.

Key: Blue is Oceania (Australia and its proximate islands); Yellow is Africa; Black is Europe; Green is Asia; Red is the Americas.































Gustavo Sousa on Tumblr

Oceaniaeuropeamericasafricaasia website

via [Co.Design]