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Remember Saro-Wiwa: The Living Memorial Concept
“Artists should be at the centre of society keeping alive a utopian vision, because society will not improve if the people envisioning a better society are politicians.” Peter Sellars The role of the artist in society is critical to communicate the injustices experienced daily by people. Art provides political expression beyond rhetoric, propaganda, and action,…
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Oil and war in Iraq
By Greg Muttitt, PLATFORM Presentation at European Social Forum, October 2004 Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, development of Iraq’s oil industry was divided into two elements. The first was to repair and rebuild the existing infrastructure, to repair damage caused by the invasion, looting and sabotage, the second being to design a long-term future…
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Britain: 90 years as a Petro State
By Greg Muttitt and James Marriott In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the same phrase was uttered to the British government by both of the UK’s two major oil corporations. BP and Shell both said that there should be a “level playing field” in the awarding of oil contracts after the removal of…
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Shell in Nigeria: oil and gas reserves crisis and political risks: shared concerns for investors and producer-communities
Jointly published by Christian Aid, Friends of the Earth, PLATFORM and Stakeholder Democracy Network. Open publication – Free publishing – More christian aid
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Disaster in the pipeline
Open publication – Free publishing – More activism
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Is it worth the risk? A financial analysis of the project
Since the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline was first conceived in the early 1990s, there has been much controversy over whether it is really financially viable. Is it too long and expensive to build? Are the available volumes of oil enough to fill the line? Are the political risks too high? To examine these issues, PLATFORM commissioned…
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Art, Education, Activism
Presented at "Artist as Educator", Ikon Gallery and University of Central England, May 2003 as part of Arts Council England's "Interrupt" Symposia. Republished: a-n Collections April 2007. “The process of social change is in desperate need of creativity and imagination, and the aesthetic process in urgent need of social engagement” (from Course Document for the MA…
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Some Common Concerns: Imagining BP’s Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey Pipelines System
Some Common Concerns was written by PLATFORM and published with Corner House, Friends of the Earth & Kurdish Human Rights Project in October 2002. The book imagines what the proposed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline system would be like if it were built. It recounts the 13 years of planning, the political positioning of the three host countries…
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The Snowflake in Hell and the Baked Alaska: Improbability, Intimacy and Change in the Public Realm
In Locality, Regeneration and Divers[c]ities, Eds Sarah Bennett and John Butler, Intellect Books, University of Plymouth In 1993, on the very outskirts of Budapest, Hungary, the ‘Statue Park Museum’ opened. It was born out of the idea of a literary historian who, four years earlier, had proposed that “all the various Lenin statues from all over…