Extinction Rebellion Blockade 15 Amazon Fulfilment Centres on Black Friday
On Black Friday, Extinction Rebellion blockaded 15 Amazon Fulfilment Centres, including 13 in the UK, 1 in Germany and 1 in Amsterdam, to call attention to Amazon’s exploitative and environmentally destructive business practices. We combined physical disruption and design. The design is partly to create photography opportunities to attract press and create good images that circulate. However it’s also about creating a visual intervention that forces people to rethink their perceptions of status quo. By subvertising, you take branding and well known elements of a brand’s image, and hijack them, subverting people’s expectations and associations with that image (or font, or colour scheme) and hopefully reprogram the way someone reacts to the original brand.
Much of my work this term has sought to answer this question of how do you unsettle people’s faith in institutions that do not serve them? and further: how do you inspire people to take matters into their own hands? To challenge these corporations who get rich off the exploitation of people and planet? To believe that alternatives are possible, and that we have the power to change things?
I believe actions like these are highly effective at this, through disruption on multiple levels.
(N.B I designed the stencil in the bottom three images, although sadly it wasn’t used on the banner & rocket for the main site)
