My neon 'BOMBS' sign in the window of the @artthearmsfair exhibition which opened today, alongside a photograph of a genuine free gift given out to arms fair delegates at DSEI, collected by the artist and undercover arms fair attendee @jill_gibbon.
The exhibition is at 50 Brook St, London W1K 5DR.
Open 11-16th Sept 12pm-8pm, and on the 15th &17th Sept 12pm-5:30pm
For the last month I've been working on a new anti-Shell exhibition that I've been hoping to install inside a single-decker biodiesel powered bus to bring up to the COP26 environmental conference in Glasgow in November and some other events on the way, including the Lakes International Comic Festival. Unfortunately, this morning I just found out one of the main sources of funding has been cancelled for unrelated reasons, so I'm launching a last-minute crowdfunder to try and still make this happen.
I've already started work on several new dioramas and installations and put down a deposit on a bus. But I now need your help to rustle up a budget for the project by pre-ordering some new anti-Hell merchandise from my website or chucking in a few quid by way of donation. I've set up a crowdfunding page on my website, in part because I was worried about a Kickstarter being shut down last minute by Shell's lawyers, but also so I can get immediate access to the funds in order to keep working on the project, since I have a little over a month to get it fully installed and on the road. (Kickstarter only pays out 2 weeks after a crowdfunder ends)
I'm very excited about some of the installations I've been working on for it and I feel like a bus is a perfect venue for these ideas, something that is mobile and can be parked up at future protests, festivals and outside Shell marketing events/corporate headquarters as an ongoing thorn in the side of my favourite oil company.
Anything anyone is able to contribute is massively appreciated!
I made a poster to promote @ArtTheArmsFair's 'Bomb Boutique' exhibition which opens in London next week, and to draw attention to the world's biggest arms fair, DSEI, which is currently attempting to arrive at London's ExCel Centre but is being heroically resisted by StopTheArmsFair and other groups.
There's a stomach-turning irony that the building that was used to house the NHS Nightingale Hospital is currently being turned into a showroom for machines that kill people.
If you have the time please consider getting involved with the blockade and protest of DSEI. Stop The Arms Fair are there every day in the run up to the DSEI opening (and during) with daily events. More details at www.stopthearmsfair.org.uk/join-in/
Arms fairs in Liverpool and Glasgow have both been cancelled due to public pressure and activists campaigns forcing local authorities to refuse to host the arms fairs on public property. While the Mayor of London has condemned the London Arms Fair (in honestly quite surprising and welcome terms) DSEI continues as they are not reliant on council premises for their venue. They are however reliant on the ExCel Centre. And the ExCel centre has only two roads to get all their weapons and exhibits through. If activists can block those roads for long enough then it is possible to shut down the arms fair. Previous campaigns (the arms fair returns every two years) have seriously disrupted and came close to wrecking the event for arms dealers.
That is part of what I think makes the #StopDSEI campaign so exciting, that it is actually possible to stop the world's biggest arms sale by standing in the road. See what events Stop the Arms Fair are up today here, and updates on current actions on their twitter here.
I also have some work in the Art the Arms Fair show alongside some amazing artists. It runs from 11th-17th Sept at 50 Brook Street, London, W1K 5DR
