Right now, Shell is preparing to drill in the Arctic for the first time. If we don’t stop them, it could be the beginning of the end for everything we hold dear - because if we’re willing to let them risk the destruction of this beautiful, vital, pristine landscape at the top of our world, what won’t we let them do?
To highlight this imminent threat to our way of life, we’ve teamed up with award-winning agency Don’t Panic and artists KennardPhillipps. Fire consumes three classic American landscapes, leaving in their place a dystopian vision of the future, a combination of the original paintings and imagery from real-life oil spills and disasters.
The famous artworks torched by Shell include ‘Christina’s World’ by Andrew Wyeth, ‘Pearblossom Highway’ by David Hockney and ‘An Arctic Summer: Boring Through the Pack in Melville Bay’ by William Bradford.
The collaboration between KennardPhillipps, Don’t Panic and Greenpeace working with classical artworks has several nice precedents. In 2013 Greenpeace attempted to install a large painting of Shell’s drilling rig, the Kulluk, run aground in the Arctic at the National Gallery during a Shell corporate event. The previous year, Don’t Panic’s television show ‘The Revolution Will Be Televised’ managed to install a print of Peter Kennard’s famous artwork ‘Haywain With Cruise Missile’ into the same National Gallery around the time of a corporate event held for Italian arms manufacturer Finmeccanica.
We won't stand aside while Shell risks everything we hold dear. It's time for ordinary people around the world to join together to protect the Arctic from Shell.