ART NOT OIL

For creativity, climate justice and an end to fossil fuel industry sponsorship of the arts

ANO is based in London, where oil industry sponsorship of high culture is most prevalent, but it has a global reach via its strong web presence. Grassroots exhibitions, creative direct actions and communications make up ANO’s versatile toolbox. 2010 sees ANO reach its 7th birthday, and their hope is to produce a desk diary jammed with resistance-fuelled artwork drawn from their galleries, with flashes of humour and positive visions of the future. This will send a message of creative resistance to the ‘oil menace’ to grassroots and established artists, as well as to cultural decision-makers. The special 2010 anniversary diary will be available in selected galleries and bookshops, as well as via the website, to anyone who wants a diary that is possessed of beauty as well as bite.

Receiving this grant from Artists Project Earth has allowed us to produce a diary that will, with any luck, catapult the issue of fossil fuel industry sponsorship into the mainstream art world, while at the same time celebrating the beauty and intensity of some of the art that is being made right now in defence of the earth, and of its inhabitants. The fact that donations from musicians are going towards getting more politicised art into the world is also happily appropriate, but we’re also very excited about the opportunity to plough much of any profit we might make to communities in the Global South Education & Training who are resisting oil and gas industry activity in their daily lives. APE really is a lifeline for grassroots climate-related projects – we thank you for being out there and for supporting our work.’