Greenwash or Us: Exhibition of Resistance to Big Oil & the Corporate Hijacking of the Arts

June 14th-21st 2004, London

A celebration of DIY expression and organisation, fighting corporate control with creativity

Address: 50 Chalk Farm Road NW1
Nearest Tubes: Chalk Farm or Camden Town

For programme details see below...

To celebrate the beginning of the end of BP's sponsorship of the National Portrait Award, come and help London Rising Tide (LRT) put together An Exhibition of Resistance to Big Oil& the Corporate Hijacking of 'the Arts', from June 15th-21st 2004.

We're asking you to rub your eyes, wipe away the mirage of 'sustainable development' and 'beyond petroleum', and create a true portrait of an oil company. It's time to strip away the greenwash. In fact it's time to reclaim the whole planet from these neoliberal robber barons and their bloody oil wars, climate chaos and massive pay hikes. We know there are better worlds out there, worlds that have nothing to do with profit or fossil fuels...or art markets for that matter.

It's our desire to see London ablaze with powerful, passionate, positive, independent art with attitude during the week - on our streets, on our airwaves, in galleries, in social centres and squats, cinemas, cafes...you name it.

We've got a few plans we'd love help with, but it would also be great to see you (and your partners in artistic crime) sorting your own events and actions.

Draft Programme:

14th June – 7pm - Press & Public preview of the ‘art not oil’ artwork, including paintings, photographs and sculptures donated by artists from around the world

15th June – 7pm: BP & Shell broken down

16th June – A ‘Greenwash or Us’ street party, with live performances (inc. David Rovics set), an open mike and a carnival spirit, from BP HQ (1 St. James’ Square, 4pm) to the National Portrait Award’s private view (NPG, St. Martin’s Lane, 5.30pm) See below for more details...

17th June – 7pm: affected communities night; speakers, films & slides from West Papua, Colombia, Nigeria etc

18th June – Friday night live music

19th/20th June – your event here? Contact us to tell us what you would like to see and what you could help out with to make it happen.

21st June – Summer solstice; Award winner announced at big NPG party; our closing do.

Plus DIY portraiture, food-not-fossil-fuels, art, street & park events (& joyous chaos!)

Contacts and further information: LRT, part of the Rising Tide UK and international networks, takes creative action to combat the root causes of climate chaos and to help build movements for social & ecological justice.

Tel: 07969 786770
email:
c/o 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES.

Check www.londonrisingtide.org.uk for regular updates and www.londonrisingtide.org.uk/portrait for a taste of the revealing and thought provoking art you can expect to see at the exhibition.

See also
www.burningplanet.net
www.risingtide.org.uk
www.nonewoil.org
Peoples' Global Action: www.agp.org

Let's mobilise our creativity to kick the corporations out of the galleries, museums, opera, Planet Earth etc.

'Greenwash or Us' Street Party - 16th June 2004

Private View, Public Exposure

Meet at BP HQ, 1 St. James' Square, 4pm
Nearest Tube: Leicester Square

This is a call out asking you to join London Rising Tide to celebrate our resistance to the corporate
hijacking of the arts by BP and their greenwash friends. On 16th June at 4pm there will be a Street Party moving from outside BP's offices in St. James Square (between Green Park and Piccadilly) to the National Portrait Gallery where BP sponsors the National Portrait Award, pulling their sophisticated brand of cultural PR wool over everyone's eyes.

Whilst BP are busy encouraging British artists and their creative talent, indigenous peoples are having their lands stolen, poisoned and destroyed. All over the world people's livelihoods and human rights are severely violated as BP, ExxonMobil, Shell and the rest of the industry plunder and mutilate for the sake of oil (like in the disastrous Baku Ceyhan and Sakhalin pipelines). Our environment and our climate are being thrown into chaos whilst the culprits try to blind us with their sunny logos and cultural sponsorship.

We want to tell BP and the NPG that the greenwash is not working. The National Portrait Award holds its Private View and party (for entrants, judges, the media and BP cronies) inside the NPG on the evening of June 16th. Let's show them a real party, a party of resistance with noise, art and music and make their private party a very public one.

Bring your own art (or somebody else's)! It would be great to see the street party alive with our alternative art and show the NPG the true faces of big oil. Bring any medium that symbolises this, painting, photographs, banners, costume, music and dance.

For details of other events happening during the week, see above...