Art As Resistance, #2
Taking the oil out of the arts
Tuesday 28 November 2017, 20 hrs
location: Framer Framed IJpromenade 2 1013 KT Amsterdam
Fossil Free Culture NL – Drop the Shell, 2017. Credit: Laura Ponchel
Framer Framed, Humanity in Action Nederland and Castrum Peregrini present a three part symposium series, ‘Art as Resistance’. For the second symposium in the series, ‘Taking the oil out of the arts’, we are zooming in on the ethics of cultural institutions taking on financial sponsorships by fossil fuel companies. How do corporate companies benefit from this ‘greenwashing’? To what extent should their cultural beneficiaries be held responsibie? And what are the impacts of ‘artistic activism’ to address this issue?
Art as Resistance #2 will take place at Framer Framed and features presentations and a workshop by BP or not BP? and Fossil Free Culture NL. In their presentations, BP or Not BP and Fossil Free Culture NL introduce participants to the topic and present examples of how they create impact through artistic interventions. The presentations are followed by a workshop Artistic Activism, with both organisations giving practical guidelines on how to generate effective and affective experiences that lead to measurable social change. After the workshop participants will have a better sense of the framework in which the Fossil Free Culture movement work. They will learn to implement artistic tactics to a larger campaigning strategy.
BP or not BP? (a clever play on ‘to be or not to be’ from Shakespeare’s Hamlet) are a national network of ‘actor-vists’ in the UK, performing disobedient theatre in many different oil-sponsored spaces. They are part of the Art Not Oil coalition – a group that protests against museums accepting sponsorship from major oil corporations, which they say is a form of ‘greenwashing’. Read more: https://bp-or-not-bp.org/about/
Fossil Free Culture NL are a network of artists, activists and scholars at the intersection of cultural work and climate politics. They are campaigning to expose and confront the influence of the fossil fuel industry on cultural institutions in the Netherlands. Recent protests include the May & September 2017 impromptu #droptheshell and #spoiledlandscapes protest-performances at the Van Gogh Museum, demonstrating the museum’s ties to oil giant Shell. Several protestors were arrested. Read more: http://fossilfreeculture.nl/
On the organisers: Framer Framed, Humanity in Action Nederland and Castrum Peregrini are organisations dealing with themes of collective memory and cultural identities. In three sessions, we team up to jointly explore the necessity for a change in how cultural institutions and producers should (re)present stories and relate critically to histories as well as to the financial structures they are part of.
Our first symposium, Art as Resistance #1, took place at Castrum Peregrini and dealt with the topic of involving communities in activism and the local relevance of a place.
Read more and see: https://framerframed.nl/en/projecten/art-as-resistance-1/