Stranding the Leviathan – a report from the Shell AGM in Den Haag, Netherlands
May 22, 2015
We are in the dim light and red velvet of the Circustheatre in Den Haag for the Shell AGM. Up on the podium are the assembled bishops of the company. Eight in the back row all non-executives. Five in the front row: the Chief Financial Officer, the Chief Executive, the Chairman and two non-excutives. Behind...
The Management of Democracy – a report from the BP AGM 2015
May 5, 2015
The low hanger of the ExCeL building – the London Exhibition Centre – squats grey and devoid of windows on the northern quayside of the former Royal Victoria Dock which was closed and privatised in 1981. Despite having visited this hall for most of the BP Annual General Meetings of the past decade, the place...
The tiger, the artists and the oil dictator’s daughter – Ackroyd & Harvey pull out of Aliyev funded exhibition
Apr 29, 2015
In the glass confines of Holborn’s Display Gallery, in the lower recessed space an animal-like skin lays slung and discarded over a length of thick rope. Created by artists Ackroyd & Harvey, Pelt is a poignant image of death. On one side grass of differing shades creates a tiger’s delicate markings, on the other a raw hide-like...
الكفاح من أجل العدالة المناخية في شمال أفريقيا
Apr 28, 2015
(المقادمة للكتاب “الثورة القادمة في شمال افريقيا- العدالة المناخية”) حمزة حموشان وميكا مينيو-بالويللو سيؤدي تغير المناخ إلى تدمير شمال أفريقيا. وسيموت الكثيرون كما سيضطر الملايين من البشر إلى الهجرة. الصحراء آخذة بالتوسع والمحاصيل تفشل وصيادو الأسماك يفقدون مصادر رزقهم. سيزداد عدم انتظام الأمطار وستتضاءل إمدادات المياه وستصبح العواصف أكثر كثافة. الصيف سيصبح أكثر سخونة والشتاء...
#MuseumWeek special: British Museum’s BP secrets revealed & more
Mar 27, 2015
The latest just in: British Museum’s BP secrets revealed BP Or Not BP? forced British Museum to reveal: BP sponsorship was just £596,000 per year from 2000- 2011 – around 0.8% of the Museum’s income. The figures were revealed under Freedom Of Information Act, just a few weeks after we forced Tate to admit that BP’s...
Find out about Shake’s new youth-led research collective and its new work on public space, young people and ‘violence’
Mar 25, 2015
Shake! is excited to launch its youth-led research collective. It starts from questions about power that come up time and again as we make and remake Shake! Why are we young people always the objects of ‘research’ and ‘policy’? And why young people of colour in particular? We are not interested in being described, explained, being told...
‘Walking among the ruins of the future’ – thinking of a city beyond neoliberalism
Mar 25, 2015
I’m waiting for Mika at the entrance to the Canary Wharf underground. We are about to go for a walk around the Isle of Dogs in the Borough of Tower Hamlets. Unfortunately we are waiting at different station exits. The upside is that I spend twenty-five minutes absorbing the scene, observing a place I’d...
Azerbaijani activists and journalists not free to collect Freedom of Expression Award
Mar 20, 2015
Guest blog from Index on Censorship Index on Censorship gave a special award at our 15th Freedom of Expression Awards – to a group of people in Azerbaijan not able to join us to collect it. Over the past eight months, Azerbaijani authorities, under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, have been engaged in relentless...
#Budget2015: Welfare for Fossil Fuels, Austerity for the rest
Mar 18, 2015
This blog was written jointly with Greg Muttitt of Oil Change International Today, Osborne announced massive tax breaks and subsidies for North Sea oil companies. A new £1.3 billion in subsidies will be handed to oil companies, with the burden transferred to the public. £1.3 billion could cover the costs of employing another 20,000 nurses...
Art and power: reflections on austerity and sponsorship
Mar 12, 2015
We often get asked: if we want the arts to be free from sponsorship by climate-wrecking oil companies, where’s the money going to come from? And aren’t we just going to push art institutions towards other corporate sponsors (arms dealers, banks) with tarnished reputations to polish? My immediate answer to this question is in the...
Demand UK MPs speak out against Azerbaijan Repression
Mar 4, 2015
In 100 days the European Olympics will be taking place in Baku. As stadiums are completed and flags unfurled many of the people we know in Azerbaijan are in prison. The European Games are being used to goldwash the BP-Aliyev regime. So desperate are they to host the event that, despite serious economic problems, they’re...
Guest post: why we picketed Student Pride
Mar 3, 2015
This is a guest blog by Hannah Smith. A shorter version of this piece appeared in Diva Magazine’s blog. A strange thing happened the very first time I went to a pride march; usually a chatterbox, I fell silent. Watching the procession I was overwhelmed by a connection to the queer community – my community...
