Tag Greenwashing

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BP: BEYOND PARODY

Painted a quick one today after hearing BP are walking back their already water-thin commitments to renewable energy and investing billions more in getting as much oil and gas out of the ground as they can in order to set fire to your grandchildren. In 2000 BP rebranded itself from British Petroleum to “Beyond Petroleum” in an early attempt at obvious greenwashing. It also popularised the concept of the Personal Carbon Footprint with a $250 million ad campaign in 2003, just before the Iraq war opened up billions of dollars worth of oil reserves for BP and other US/UK oil companies to loot.

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HELL BUS BOOK – PREORDER!

I’m close to finishing work on a book that compiles everything I’ve done on the Hell Bus and adjacent anti-Shell projects into a single publication. My hope is that sales of this can help keep the Hell Bus on the road for the foreseeable future. I’ll post a few sample pages below. The book will be ready to ship in the first month of July. But if you preorder now you’ll get some extra free stickers with your copy! The Hell Bus Book Buy Now

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SHELL AGM

A new poster I made about Shell’s attitude towards the climate crisis has made its way onto hundreds of billboards, bus stops and tube carriages ahead of the Shell shareholders AGM next week. Massive thanks to Brandalism and all the tireless install teams who put these up! Will post more photos here soon.

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A POSTCARD FROM HELL

I made this matte painting forced perspective photo opportunity in Los Llanos De Aridane in La Palma, Canary Islands so tourists could take a postcard photo of what the city could look like after a fossil fuel powered flood. I was invited as part of Trashplant Festival alongside some incredible street artists, including my old friend Isaac Cordal.

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OVERTAKEN BY REALITY: SATIRE INSIDE A DYSTOPIA

Between the Pope auctioning off his autographed Lamborghini for charity, Lockheed Martin bidding to run NHS GP surgeries, and the FBI’s social media tributes to Martin Luther King Jr, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that satire is dead. And maybe it is. As an artist who uses satire in my work I’ve been overtaken by reality more than once, and sometimes wondered if maybe I’m not making jokes, but accidentally producing comically malevolent ideas that could actually be used by the bastards who run the place.

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CARBON CAPTURE AT THE SCIENCE MUSEUM – BROUGHT TO YOU BY SHELL

Some impromptu new exhibits appeared today as part of the Shell-sponsored carbon capture exhibition at the Science Museum, London. ⁠ I thought it was weird that an exhibition about carbon capture, paid for by an oil company, didn’t once mention that 81% of all the carbon *ever* captured by this technology has been used by oil companies and pumped back into oil wells to help extract more oil. Seems like a significant omission (ok yes we can call it a ‘carbon omission’) Also thought it was weird that the exhibition didn’t mention that oil corporations are some of the biggest investors in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. No doubt because of how useful it is to them in getting more oil out of the ground, while being able to pass it off as a ‘green technology’ for tax breaks and marketing purposes. But now at least, for a time, the Science Museum exhibition does mention those things, as well featuring a great new idea about a super useful product to turn all that captured carbon into.

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HELL BUS @ GLASTONBURY

Glastonbury was absolutely incredible, thanks to everyone who called into the Hell Bus in Shangri-La. A massive thanks to everyone at Shangri-La for having me, and to my amazing Hell Bus hard party/work crew: @thetwopack, @kestra.laurent.dances.the.bug, @pineapple_king___ and @hannahslogic. It was hard to get any photos inside the bus when it was full as when it got full it was very full and the queue was out the door. I’d say around two thousand people crammed through this thing over 5 days altho I suspect more than that. The response was amazing and ran the gammut from “is this by Shell?” to “Its fucking boss that innit!” and “that was the most randomest thing ever” to “it’s an astonishing piece of work”. But overall it was super positive and I couldn’t have asked for a better crowd and a better reaction. All that work paid off and now we know it works and doesn’t fall apart when countless numbers of smashed people smash through it.

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HELL COMPLETE

I’ve just about recovered from the Hell Bus deadline and journey to and from Glasgow. It was an extremely stressful, frenetic and expensive project but it was also incredible fun and pretty exhilarating to be working on a large-scale exhibition again, (the biggest, and definitely the most complicated I’ve ever done) after the non-year of 2020. I absolutely love a deadline. There’s nothing like the fear of letting people down and making a prize tit of yourself to get you out of bed in the morning. The response to the exhibition was amazing, which I’m sure had nothing to do with the fact I was sitting at the end of the bus grinning and prodding at visitors as they left. The enthusiasm of the response encouraged me as to the viability of properly touring the bus in the new year. (If you run an event that could host the bus in spring/summer 2022 get in touch!)

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HELL BUS AT SHELL HQ

I brought the Hell Bus down to Shell HQ today with Joe Lycett. Parked it outside for almost an hour while the staff inside went into a self-imposed lockdown. The bus was being filmed for a new documentary Joe is making about Shell’s greenwashing PR, which will be out later this month. More details when I have them! The bus will be going to Glasgow for COP26 at the end of the month, and the exhibition inside is still under construction. I’m posting regular updates of my DIY nightmares over on my Instagram story.

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BARCLAYS #FOSSILBANKS

I made a new poster for a Brandalism campaign exposing Barclays’ dirty fossil fuel links and their funding of rainforest-clearing agribusinesses. It’s part of a campaign across 20 UK cities and towns with 200 billboard and bus stop posters. There’s more info and photos of the other artist’s posters in the campaign on the Brandalism website. More of my previous subvertising work here.

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HSBC’S EMPTY CLIMATE PROMISES

I designed a new poster for Brandalism’s ongoing campaign focusing on HSBC’s empty climate promises. Billboard and bus stop posters were installed around the UK by Brandalism and volunteers from other anti-advertising groups. Massive thanks to everyone who put these in the street. More details about the project on the Brandalism website. More of my subvertising work here: www.spellingmistakescostlives.com/subvertising These posters are a follow up to one I made late last year.

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CEASE AND DESIST

I’ve received a cease-and-desist letter from Shell demanding I remove these apocalypse-related products from my website within 7 days. This seems like pretty clear retaliation for the recent Shell greenwashing subvertising campaign my work was in, organised by Brandalism. I’m lucky enough to have free legal support from The Satanic Temple, London & UK so I’m going to see if I can fight it but I’m not optimistic. So I reckon you have a week to buy these up before they disappear from my website forever💀👍. All funds raised will go towards utterly pissing off Shell forever.

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#MAKETHEFUTURE #UNINHABITABLE

I designed some posters for this anti-fossil fuel greenwashing campaign in collaboration with Brandalism targeting Shell’s bullshit PR festival #makethefuture. Posters gone up in bus stops in London, Leeds, Bristol and Oxford. Images taken from my #burnthefuture installation at Shangri-La/Glastonbury last year. The other artists posters for this are brilliant too. 🛢🔥💀

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