I was just surfing through some images of the protests at the G20 in Pittsburgh when I was stopped and stunned by the absolutely incredible banners of art-activists of the Beehive Design Collective.
the Beehive Collective translates in-depth socio-political research and on-the-ground interviews into exhaustive, intricate, educational graphic artwork. Above is a detail of their latest graphic campaign, Plan Colombia, the second in a trilogy of massive, quilt-like banners exploring "the issue of colonialism in the Andean Region of South America."
The long history of colonialism in the Americas, currently manifested in the Andean Region as "Plan Colombia", is a strong metaphor of the multi-faceted destructive influences of U.S. foreign policy and corporate monoculture on a global scale. This graphic attempts to expose the lie of the drug war as a smokescreen for multinational corporation's interests in extraction of the rich biodiversity and natural resources of the Amazon and her peoples. It is an anti-war poster that speaks in the mythology of our times... the cancerous monomyth of corporate globalization, and its antibodies of grassroots resistance.Exactly what I wanted to explain to someone the other day! If only I had a 25-foot-long banner as a visual aid. The Beehive's in tour and fundraising mode right now, getting ready to finish the third installment and publish the whole thing as a series of educational posters and coloring books [!]
If you have a protest looming, though, and need some coloring pages pronto, you can download the Beehive imagery in various sizes and formats from their site. Viva la revolucion, &c.!
Plan Colombia info and images, plus so much more! [beehivecollective.org]
keep up the good work.
saludos,
Adamo