PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

The BeeHive in PGH
by etta cetera Thursday, Dec. 12, 2002 at 5:48 PM
de_tritus@yahoo.com

This Sunday!! come to our presentation!!

This is the last date of our tour and a good chance
to meet bees who don't live in Pittsburgh!!

The bees will be at the University of Pitt on Sunday the 15th
at the Posver Hall Galleria at� 7:30 pm.

posvar hall is right at the corner of forbes and bigelow in oakland, behind
hillman library.

----------------------
Interested, but need more background? Here�s more�

The Beehive�s Plan Colombia poster and
presentation is the product
of many
discussions around the issue of colonialism in the
Andean Region of
South
America that took place between our collective and
organizers over the
spring
of 2002 in Ecuador, Colombia and the U.S. These
exchanges of
information and
inspiration were collaboratively sewn together into a
quilt of images,
and
organized in a circuit of progressions and contrasts
that inform and
engage the
viewer throughout their journey of this elaborate
graphic. This
circuit, with
its pathways geared towards fostering a narrative
discussion, aids in
the
functionality of the graphic to be used as a political
organizing tool�
a
powerful tool in which to discuss an overwhelmingly
complex situation
in a
format that breaks the information down into more
digestible, and
therefore
memorable, chunks. This communication strategy allows
for addressing
specific
elements of the issue, still in context of the larger
forces at hand,
while
transcending the boundaries of language and learning.
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 mono
myth of corporate globalization, and its antibodies of
grassroots
resistance.
In the attempt to overcome the tendency of political
imagery to simply
portray �what we are against� and horror stories, this
overwhelming
situation
is illustrated in three �layers� to help the viewer
experience the
different
aspects of an extremely complex, and brutal situation.
The image�s
mission is
to portray the story of not just the nightmare, but to
give weight to
the
inspiring stories of hope, courage, and struggle of
the people and
critters
that are living through it.
As North American youth that have endured the
destructive and racist
brainwashing of television, video games, cultural
appropriation and
advertising
imagery, our collective felt it was essential to
produce this
representation
directly in collaboration with organizers in the
Andean Region, to get
the
story straight�. The result as you will see, is thick
with many
voices.
The tools produced from this collaboration are
being distributed, as
anti-
copyright material, for use in campaigns in both the
South and North of
the
Americas. This U.S. tour is being conducted
simultaneously with fellow
bees in
South America, busy with presentations in Ecuador, and
Colombia, as
organizers
throughout the region prepare for protests against the
meetings of the
Free
Trade Area of the Americas in Quito, in early
November.



The Beehive Design Collective
graphics@beehivecollective.org
http://www.beehivecollective.org

www.beehivecollective.org

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