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Offshore: Iran, BP, Algeria & Boris Island
Blog post -
Oct 9, 2014
“No you can’t get through down there. They’ve got a full set of anti-terrorist police. Machine guns and all. They’ll jump out at you if you go beyond that fence. Mind you, it helps keep the crime down in the village”. The tall man with white hair straggling out from under his black hat and...
Possess the Bay! Taking control of the Oil Road in Falmouth
Blog post -
Aug 29, 2014
Platform was invited to present to the Geohack workshops that are part of the Fascinatecon conference in Falmouth this week. A version of the following was given via skype by James Marriott to an audience of ‘artists, gamers, historians, performance-makers, seafarers, landlubbers, the flooded and the landlocked’ in the Performance Centre, Penryn Campus, University of...
Interviewing Mahienour: revolution and climate change
Blog post -
Jul 22, 2014
Support Mahienour I spent several months earlier this year trying to interview my friend Mahienour El-Massry, a pivotal Egyptian revolutionary from Alexandria. She had been sentenced in absentia to 2 years in prison in January, but hadn’t been arrested yet. That didn’t mean she was safe – the police could have arrested her from her home...
Oil money and theatre – questions from the Green Room
Blog post -
Jul 10, 2014
Last night saw a wide variety of folks from the world of theatre come together to discuss the growing controversy of oil sponsorship of the arts. Many in theatre now recognise that climate change and environmental damage are pressing issues that need to be addressed, both in the very content of the work, and the...
Norwegian research ethics committee slams university-oil industry links
Blog post -
Jun 24, 2014
(Guest blog by Ragnhild Freng Dale. For more information on collusion between oil companies & universities in Britain, see Platform’s report Knowledge & Power) A damning statement from the Norwegian committee responsible for university research ethics challenges collaboration between universities and oil companies. After months of deliberation over the ethics of petroleum research, the Norwegian...
Shell AGM – Securing the comforts of the present generation at the expense of the next
Blog post -
May 27, 2014
Last week I headed home from the Netherlands, crossing the North Sea from the delta of the Rhine to the delta of the Thames, after having attended the Shell AGM in Den Haag with friends and allies from Greenpeace, ShareAction, Observatorio Petrolero Sur, Milieudefensie and Global Witness. This year’s Shell AGM was a quieter affair...
Egyptian climate justice campaigner & Platform ally jailed for 2 years
Blog post -
May 22, 2014
A close ally of Platform’s was jailed for two years for her activism on Tuesday. Mahienour El-Massry is an inspiring Egyptian human rights lawyer, who led the way in challenging police brutality in Alexandria. Mahienour helped communities demand environmental justice, factory workers to fight for their rights and has been on the frontline of the...
Arts activism, London style
Multimedia -
May 14, 2014
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio National programme Books and Arts Daily – Michael Cathcart interview with Jane Trowell, Platform, on ethics, arts and corporate sponsorship http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/booksandartsdaily/platform-london/5450042
Art in the face of climate change – Deller, detachment and William Morris
Blog post -
May 12, 2014
Recently I gave a short talk followed by a lengthy discussion in a ‘Green Drinks’ forum organised by Artsadmin at Toynbee Studios in Whitechapel, London. The audience was comprised mainly of people in the arts engaged with ecology, and people in the ecological movement engaged with the arts. The text of the talk ran as...
Not cool
Media coverage -
May 1, 2014
(on Tate’s reaction to Platform’s Freedom of Information request to see the minutes of the ethics committee for the meeting where the decision on renewing BP’s sponsorship was taken) Art Monthly news piece
Slow travel across the Gobi – an extract from ‘Only Planet’
Blog post -
Apr 17, 2014
We’re no strangers to the joys and challenges of slow-travel at Platform – check out James Marriott’s account of his container ship journey across the Atlantic last summer . It’s a constant question to re-negotiate for us about how much attempts to travel in a less climate-trashing fashion can bump up against our effectiveness in...
Gas grabs and 5 questions to power at the Caspian Corridor Conference
Blog post -
Mar 18, 2014
The Euro Caspian Mega Pipeline is a massive infrastructure system designed to suck gas out of the Caspian into Western Europe. Construction of the pipeline involves politics and finance as much as it does concrete building materials, and the conference I’m about to go to is one in a series of events attempting to make...
