sequatchie valley institute

The True Cost of Coal

A swarm is coming! The Beehive Design Collective — a non-profit, volunteer driven, political arts organization based in eastern Maine is headed this way. The group’s mission is to “cross pollinate the grassroots” through the creation of images as an effective medium for deconstructing and educating the public about complex geopolitical issues.

Most interesting is their methodology. The bees create collaborative, hand-illustrated posters of dizzying intricacy which are patchwork “quilts” of personal stories related to them in their travels. Before setting pen to paper, the hive does extensive touring and field research. Interviewing community members about the effects of globalization on their situation is a crucial component of the collective’s investigative process. “We feel it’s extremely important to gather our information from as close to the source as possible,” an anonymous worker bee says. They heavily encourage audience participation, “We feel people are visual learners, and that interaction is a learning device. You can only absorb so much from the standardized, one-way, ‘talking head at the podium’ setup.”

The Beehive bristles with activity, working on numerous fronts to tackle issues as diverse as biotechnology, corporate globalization, food and agriculture, and colonialism.

Chattanooga Event Information

The Beehive Collective is coming to Chattanooga on November 19th.

They will give two demonstrations while in town.

Wed. Nov. 19th from 3pm to 5pm
UTC Fine Arts Center Lobby
Corner of Palmetto and Vine
Sponsored by The Cress Gallery
and The Sequatchie Valley Institute

Wed. Nov. 19th from 6:30 to 8pm
Green Spaces
63 E. Main Street
Sponsored by The Cress Gallery
and The Sequatchie Valley Institute

They will be bringing three of their posters and give a presentation about their work featuring their current poster in progress concerning Mountain Top Removal. For more information visit www.beehivecollective.org <http://www.beehivecollective.org>

They are an internationally known group of artist/activists who explore issues of global concern and create large collaborative art posters to depict those issues. Currently they are working on the issue of Mountain Top Removal.

Local contact: Jeannie Cerulean 425-4302/432-2482
also Ruth Grover of The Cress Gallery at UTC

Download and Print the Chattanooga Event Flyer

Beehive Collective Cost of Coal Flyer – 3mb PDF

Campaign PSA Information

excerpted from the bees’ press kit and coal campaign blog available on their website:

For immediate release

ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN

Understanding the devastation of Mountaintop Removal is perhaps primarily a visual undertaking – the vastness of the altered landscape cannot be conveyed with words alone. And while the Beehive Collective <http://beehivecollective.org/> is known for graphics that speak in pictures across the cultural and language barriers of North and South Americas, it is our hope through this campaign to use our image-based storytelling methods to cross domestic class, geographical, and literacy barriers very close to home. We intend to produce a learning tool that artfully captures the human and ecological scale of totalitarian resource extraction while reinforcing and participating in the rich storytelling tradition of Appalachia.

Contact:
Beehive Design Collective
3 Elm Street
Machias, ME 04654
phone: 207-255-6737
email: pollinators [at] beehivecollective [dot] org
web: www.beehivecollective.org <http://www.beehivecollective.org>