Wednesday, February 22,
5:15 - 7:00 PM Kennedy 406, 625 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA
Informal discussion on running an artist-activist collective
Monday, February 27
5:00 - 7:00 PM Presentation of The True Cost of Coal Banner
Tower Auditorium, 621 Huntington Avenue
7:00 - 8:30 Exhibition Opening
Arnheim Gallery, 621 Huntington Avenue
Free admission- all are welcome!
Five members of the Beehive Collective, a design cooperative based in Machias, Maine, will be in residence in the Art Education Department at MassArt from February 21-28.
The Beehive’s mission is to create collaborative, anti-copyright images that can be used as alternative educational and organizing tools. Best known for their posters, the bees collaborate to create visual narratives that break down and deconstruct complex and overwhelming political/social issues.
The Bees exhibition in the Arnheim Gallery runs from February 27 – March 14. For more information on the Bees visit to MassArt, visit the Art Education Department website.
Come See the *Big Picture!* The BEEHIVE COLLECTIVE presents the TRUE COST OF COAL!
Over three years in the making, theTrue Cost of Coal is a collaboratively-made, highly-detailed, allegorical illustration brought to life by the Bees themselves: volunteer activists, storytellers, and educators who use hand-drawn cartoons and stories from grassroots communities to explore the connections between our local, everyday stories and the bigger picture of our historical moment.
The True Cost of Coal depicts the complex history of Mountaintop Removal coal mining, the most extreme form of surface mining for coal. Told in plainspoken and accessible language, the Bees' engaging narrative combines clearheaded analysis with the heartfelt imperative to organize, support, and engage these often overwhelming issues…together!
Emphasizing the resiliency of communities on the frontlines of coal extraction, globalization, and climate change, the Bees highlight global, grassroots, community-led solutions to the energy crisis and invite us to look critically at corporate greenwashing, green capitalism, and top-down strategies that promise more crisis, inequality, and business as usual in the pivotal years to come.
With a gigantic portable mural teeming with intricate images of plants and animals from the most biodiverse temperate forest on the planet, the Bees will draw audiences together around common experiences, connect the dots of corporate greed and environmental injustice, and explore hopeful possibilities for collective action.