Licence To Spill Presents...
The Campaign
In May 2010, a group calling themselves Liberate Tate released black helium balloons carrying ‘oil-slicked’ dead fish and model birds to the upper airspace of Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall during the gallery’s BP sponsored birthday party. A movement was born. Gushing from floral skirts, spilling elegantly from giant white eggs, jetting from paint tubes across the floor of the iconic Tate Turbine Hall, the flood of oily resistance that followed has generated a fierce debate in the art world around oil, ethics and sponsorship.
Impressed, PLATFORM stepped up to argue the case, launching the campaign Licence to Spill, with support from over 171 artists. We argue that the oil corporations' stamp on these hefty cultural institutions buys it a badge of acceptability, a social licence to operate. This quietly smooths over decades of ecological damage and devastating impacts on communities that are living with oil extraction.
The Project
In January 2011, during five days in a Central London art space, we will exhibit artifacts, images and videos from the work of the Liberate Tate collective, and host workshops to actively engage the public. We will explore the power of aesthetic interventions to disturb, re-vision and re-form the relationships between artist, institution, sponsor and viewer. This project is about celebrating resistance to big oil sponsorship deals. It’s about creating a dynamic and exciting space for people to learn, discuss, make, plot, strategize and empower themselves. We believe art is not just a mechanism to reveal the world, but also a force to change it. We will widely promote and advertise the event to ensure that the mainstream art world engages with the issues, and that their is a visible point for new people to get involved in whatever way they can.
In a time of massive public funding cuts in the we know this campaign is going to face critics. But if artists fold at the feet of big oil when they flash their cash, who exactly do we expect will stand up to them?
About Us
From rivers in Nigeria, to Arctic waters, to the Gulf of Mexico, oil companies destroy communities and ecosystems to boost their profits, while the planet's ecosystem slides ever closer to climate chaos. PLATFORM combines the transformatory power of art with the tangible goals of campaigning, the rigour of in-depth research with the vision to promote futures beyond oil.
What We Need
We need £2000 (because this site is based in the USA we have converted the amounts to US dollars, but you can pay in £ and we will get £) to rent a space, print images of the actions into canvases, buy materials, advertise widely and produce an electric participatory exhibition. We also plan to produce a book of postcards of images from the interventions, for people to send and share and spread the campaign messages.
Videos and stills from the various Liberate Tate performances can be seen in the 'Gallery' section.
We are committed to ethical sponsorship and would be delighted to receive your support. PLATFORM is a registered charity (no 1044485).
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Algriht alright alright that’s exactly what I needed!
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Arina: I got you email address Honestly, I have no clue how many pics we add hehe. A ton! And I have a ton of pics on my comupter I have yet to add. I try to add some every day. Tathy is from Brazil and i’m from the States neither of us are from England.
Arina: I got you email address Honestly, I have no clue how many pics we add hehe. A ton! And I have a ton of pics on my comupter I have yet to add. I try to add some every day. Tathy is from Brazil and i’m from the States neither of us are from England.
Arina: I got you email address Honestly, I have no clue how many pics we add hehe. A ton! And I have a ton of pics on my comupter I have yet to add. I try to add some every day. Tathy is from Brazil and i’m from the States neither of us are from England.
Getting older can not be stopped on its trakcs. But with suitable pores and skin care products and the correct anti-aging cream, amazing results could be seen in just several weeks. The results become more visible with normal use. It’s advised though that when using anti-aging wrinkle cream, the entire kit of exactly the same product must be employed.
Getting older can not be stopped on its trakcs. But with suitable pores and skin care products and the correct anti-aging cream, amazing results could be seen in just several weeks. The results become more visible with normal use. It’s advised though that when using anti-aging wrinkle cream, the entire kit of exactly the same product must be employed.
Getting older can not be stopped on its trakcs. But with suitable pores and skin care products and the correct anti-aging cream, amazing results could be seen in just several weeks. The results become more visible with normal use. It’s advised though that when using anti-aging wrinkle cream, the entire kit of exactly the same product must be employed.
85aOn a scale of 0-10 with 0 being completely wlrohtess and 10 being superior, my seatmate and I gave Holes scores ranging from 4-7 (some parts were better than others), which gives an overall NTW rating: Not The Worst. Even though the play clicked right along with no uncomfortable pauses (good directing), overall the plot too often developed as if the characters were thinking it up as they went along. It is NOT an inspired plot and that woodpecker song is too dumb for words. The casting was good. Nick Abeel from the start was extremely annoying in every way. I just wanted to slap him, which I suspect is the emotion the playwright intended to engender. Mark Goetzinger and Jennifer Johansen always give solid performances and Milicent Wright is magical, a divine talent. (We attend any play that Milicent Wright and Jennifer Johansen, or Rob Johansen, are in, sometimes twice.) Wayne T. Carr so much presence, just a pleasure to watch him work. All the actors did fine (those delinquent kids must have been good actors, because I found them thoroughly repulsive, wanted to slap them, too). But please, PLEASE tell your young actors that they have to ARTICULATE. They have to make every syllable understandable. You are stage actors, you guys. It’s not TV, not film, not the school cafeteria or mumbling in your sleep, it’s the stage, and many in the audience are over the age of 40, 50, 60 and (gasp) even older. We don’t hear as fast or as well as we used to. We require articulation. Slowing down a teeny-tiny bit would help, but what would help most is to articulate, enunciate, pronounce every syllable. We want to be able to hear and understand. Another magical actor with enormous talent and stage presence Mauricio Suarez. Wow! That kid is going places. Final word: Not the greatest play. I wouldn’t recommend it, except maybe to a talent scout looking for a good 13-year-old actor, and I certainly hope you never reprise it. But I’m not sorry I saw it. In general it was a fun evening and the refreshments were great. We loved those brownies and meatballs!21
85aOn a scale of 0-10 with 0 being completely wlrohtess and 10 being superior, my seatmate and I gave Holes scores ranging from 4-7 (some parts were better than others), which gives an overall NTW rating: Not The Worst. Even though the play clicked right along with no uncomfortable pauses (good directing), overall the plot too often developed as if the characters were thinking it up as they went along. It is NOT an inspired plot and that woodpecker song is too dumb for words. The casting was good. Nick Abeel from the start was extremely annoying in every way. I just wanted to slap him, which I suspect is the emotion the playwright intended to engender. Mark Goetzinger and Jennifer Johansen always give solid performances and Milicent Wright is magical, a divine talent. (We attend any play that Milicent Wright and Jennifer Johansen, or Rob Johansen, are in, sometimes twice.) Wayne T. Carr so much presence, just a pleasure to watch him work. All the actors did fine (those delinquent kids must have been good actors, because I found them thoroughly repulsive, wanted to slap them, too). But please, PLEASE tell your young actors that they have to ARTICULATE. They have to make every syllable understandable. You are stage actors, you guys. It’s not TV, not film, not the school cafeteria or mumbling in your sleep, it’s the stage, and many in the audience are over the age of 40, 50, 60 and (gasp) even older. We don’t hear as fast or as well as we used to. We require articulation. Slowing down a teeny-tiny bit would help, but what would help most is to articulate, enunciate, pronounce every syllable. We want to be able to hear and understand. Another magical actor with enormous talent and stage presence Mauricio Suarez. Wow! That kid is going places. Final word: Not the greatest play. I wouldn’t recommend it, except maybe to a talent scout looking for a good 13-year-old actor, and I certainly hope you never reprise it. But I’m not sorry I saw it. In general it was a fun evening and the refreshments were great. We loved those brownies and meatballs!21
85aOn a scale of 0-10 with 0 being completely wlrohtess and 10 being superior, my seatmate and I gave Holes scores ranging from 4-7 (some parts were better than others), which gives an overall NTW rating: Not The Worst. Even though the play clicked right along with no uncomfortable pauses (good directing), overall the plot too often developed as if the characters were thinking it up as they went along. It is NOT an inspired plot and that woodpecker song is too dumb for words. The casting was good. Nick Abeel from the start was extremely annoying in every way. I just wanted to slap him, which I suspect is the emotion the playwright intended to engender. Mark Goetzinger and Jennifer Johansen always give solid performances and Milicent Wright is magical, a divine talent. (We attend any play that Milicent Wright and Jennifer Johansen, or Rob Johansen, are in, sometimes twice.) Wayne T. Carr so much presence, just a pleasure to watch him work. All the actors did fine (those delinquent kids must have been good actors, because I found them thoroughly repulsive, wanted to slap them, too). But please, PLEASE tell your young actors that they have to ARTICULATE. They have to make every syllable understandable. You are stage actors, you guys. It’s not TV, not film, not the school cafeteria or mumbling in your sleep, it’s the stage, and many in the audience are over the age of 40, 50, 60 and (gasp) even older. We don’t hear as fast or as well as we used to. We require articulation. Slowing down a teeny-tiny bit would help, but what would help most is to articulate, enunciate, pronounce every syllable. We want to be able to hear and understand. Another magical actor with enormous talent and stage presence Mauricio Suarez. Wow! That kid is going places. Final word: Not the greatest play. I wouldn’t recommend it, except maybe to a talent scout looking for a good 13-year-old actor, and I certainly hope you never reprise it. But I’m not sorry I saw it. In general it was a fun evening and the refreshments were great. We loved those brownies and meatballs!21
Hi Kim, I will not be offended if you do not post my comemnt, since it’s not in haiku form. I wrote this poem many decades ago; it’s topic-appropriate, if not haiku-compliant!I never used to like you, Dandelion,They put you in a lowly class called weed’And year by year when you came back in Springtime,Your flower was a nuisance, all agreed.But oh! I’ve come to love you, dandelion,To me you are exquisite and so free!You light up fields with independent glory,Like mini-suns in quiet ecstasy.
Hi Kim, I will not be offended if you do not post my comemnt, since it’s not in haiku form. I wrote this poem many decades ago; it’s topic-appropriate, if not haiku-compliant!I never used to like you, Dandelion,They put you in a lowly class called weed’And year by year when you came back in Springtime,Your flower was a nuisance, all agreed.But oh! I’ve come to love you, dandelion,To me you are exquisite and so free!You light up fields with independent glory,Like mini-suns in quiet ecstasy.
Hi Kim, I will not be offended if you do not post my comemnt, since it’s not in haiku form. I wrote this poem many decades ago; it’s topic-appropriate, if not haiku-compliant!I never used to like you, Dandelion,They put you in a lowly class called weed’And year by year when you came back in Springtime,Your flower was a nuisance, all agreed.But oh! I’ve come to love you, dandelion,To me you are exquisite and so free!You light up fields with independent glory,Like mini-suns in quiet ecstasy.
Thank you so much for documenting the event for us. Your imeags certainly look better than my efforts on the old Olympus! I think these really capture the spirit of The Story Exchange. Magic!Thanks again for letting us hold the event at Created In Birmingham, it was a fantastic few days!
good post, i have been looking for it
wow,damm good post