Category Protest

SHELL IN NIGER DELTA

Yesterday I visited two Shell oil spill sites in the Niger Delta with Ogoni climate activists from Lekeh Development Foundation, local community leaders, and West African climate experts. It might be the saddest and most enraging thing I have ever seen. While there I filmed Ogoni community leaders, activists, students and doctors, explaining the situation and the suffering of these communities, and captured footage of the ecological devastation Shell and other oil companies have brought to their homes. See my story for one of these videos, the rest I need time to edit and upload.

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HELL BIKE AT ‘THE BIG ONE’

The Hell Bike I designed for Fossil Free London got plenty of action last weekend at The Big One demos outside Parliament. It had a great reaction at the protest and I was really happy to see it in its stationary and marching modes. The banners are retractable depending on what the bike is being used for (and how windy it is). I wanted to make something that is as versatile as possible for all the different types of actions and protests it will be needed on, as it’s not just a straight-up art thing, it actually needs to be useful!As for the Hell Bus I hope to have some news about that in the coming weeks..

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JUST STOP OIL AT THE SNOOKER

A quick one I painted today inspired by yesterday’s Just Stop Oil demonstration at the snooker. Something worth considering for the armchair strategists who disapprove of these tactics: look up the tactics of the Suffragettes. Not just when they chained themselves to railings and jumped in front of a racehorse, I mean all the tactics. Look at how they burned down churches, poured ink into post boxes, fought police in the streets, set fire to moving trains and interfered with rail signals to try and cause crashes, threw an axe at the prime minister. Ask yourself if you would have supported the Suffragettes *at the time*, rather than from the comfort of the present where we can rest assured the campaign was just & effective. I would have even struggled with it, as I have with some climate actions. But on balance, the scale of the injustice at hand requires interventions that disrupt normal life. How can you have a normal society when half the population are denied human rights? How can you have a normal society that runs on fuels that will end organised human life on earth?

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POLICE PROTEST SIGN

My sign at the #KillTheBill May Day protest in London (Photo by Joe Kibria). ‘Blue bib’ cops at protests are there to gather intelligence on protesters which the police then use against protest movements. The Police monitoring organisation Netpol found evidence from FOI requests that ‘Police Liaison Officers’ at protests are trained in intelligence gathering, and information they acquired through friendly chats at protests has been later used in prosecutions against peaceful protesters. The nationwide protests were about the dystopian police powers in the new Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill currently being pushed by the government. It would outlaw any protest which caused ‘serious annoyance’, i.e every protest worth its salt, would expand attacks on Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities and increase already misused stop and search powers. Photo: Lucy Brisbane This photo looks like we’re talking but I was just waiting for him to finish asking his question before I tapped the sign again. (Photo by: Yushy)

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EXTINCTION REBELLION AT THE HELL CENTRE

Shout out to everyone at the Extinction Rebellion protests today, in particular to the guy who super glued himself to the door at the Shell HQ with a copy of the anti-Shell logo I designed for my #burnthefuture project. It was also part of a banner they hung from the front of the building (see below). Very happy with that! If any activists ever need print quality files of my work for protests just get in touch.

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ART THE ARMS FAIR

I’ve new work in The Opening Night of Art the Arms Fair group show on Monday. Cassetteboy is playing too. Tickets are available from artthearmsfair.com or the event page above. All proceeds go to Campaign Against Arms Trade . This Thomas the Tank sculpture will be on sale as well as a bunch of prints, comics & postcards to raise enough money to really #stopDSEI next time. We’ve also just heard that some stands setting up at the DSEI arms fair are up to 4 days behind schedule thanks to the actions of everyone who have been helping Stop The Arms Fair. Anyone who has put on any kind of exhibition before knows that being even one day behind schedule is a nightmare. I’m so happy.

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STOP THE ARMS FAIR

You can help Stop The Arms Fair – road blockades happening now and until the 11th Sept in London to prevent weapons being delivered to the DSEI Arms Fair site. Check the Stop The Arms Fair website / facebook /twitter for details or just head down now to the ExCeL London centre and get involved. On Friday I’m going to be giving at talk at Conference at the Gates: Academics Against the Arms Fair. I’ll also have some work in The Exhibition of Art the Arms Fair trying to raise money for Campaign Against the Arms Trade. This is the first year there is a genuine chance we can prevent the DSEI Arms Fair from happening. Get involved!

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