Greenpeace’s Save the Arctic campaign has teamed up with award winning British creative agency Don’t Panic and famous British montage artists KennardPhillipps, to create a provocative new video targeting oil giant Shell and its plans to drill in the icy waters of the US Alaskan Arctic this summer. The video features three iconic landscape artworks being burnt away to expose the jarring replacements by KennardPhillipps underneath. Fire consumes these 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.
Greenpeace has created a provocative new video targeting oil giant Shell and its plans to drill in the icy waters of the US Alaskan Arctic this summer
Greenpeace said a movement of seven million people had already coalesced around its previous Save the Arctic campaigns and is standing by to take part in further protests against drilling for oil in the Arctic. The film has been uploaded to YouTube and Facebook’s new video platform and Greenpeace has been using a team of mobilisers worldwide for promotion on social media channels. The campaigners have targeted creative media outlets to build interest in the campaign before attempting to get coverage in mainstream media, and a teaser shot of the artworks was sent to The Guardian ahead of yesterday’s official campaign launch.
For the campaign, Greenpeace has teamed up with award winning British creative agency Don’t Panic and famous British montage artists KennardPhillipps
In the film (below), the previously picturesque scenes have been transformed by Shell's drilling infrastructure, devastating oil spills and explosions. It gives the viewer a powerful sense of what Shell risks by drilling in the Arctic. The three famous artworks torched by Shell are “Pearblossom Highway” by David Hockney, “Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth, and “An Arctic Summer: Boring Through the Pack in Melville Bay” by William Bradford.
Greenpeace – A Song of Oil, Ice and Fire
The collaboration between KennardPhillipps, Don’t Panic and Greenpeace working with classical artworks has several precedents. In 2013 Greenpeace attempted to install a large painting of Shell’s drilling rig run aground in the Arctic at the National Gallery during a Shell corporate event, and the previous year, Don’t Panic’s satirical 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.
In the film, the previously picturesque scenes of three classic American landscape artworks have been transformed by Shell's drilling infrastructure
Greenpeace Arctic campaigner Elena Polisano, said: “Shell could be risking disaster by drilling for oil in Arctic waters in less than six weeks. We made this video to expose that, and show how its plans affect all of us too, because the impact of climate change affects the places we all live in. If Shell drills in the Arctic it could devastate this iconic and beautiful place, and its incredible wildlife, like polar bears and narwhals. All the evidence shows Shell can’t drill for oil safely in the Arctic. The extreme conditions mean it’s when, not if, a spill will happen. Shell has a huge PR machine behind it, but it didn’t count on millions of ordinary people standing up to protect the Arctic. We need everyone to watch and share this video, to show Shell it won’t get away with destroying the world we love.”
In 2013 Greenpeace attempted to install a large painting of Shell’s drilling rig run aground in the Arctic at the National Gallery during a Shell corporate event
KennardPhillipps added: “We sorted through hundreds of photos of oil accidents. We have superimposed these real oil spills onto the American dream and the pristine icebergs of the Arctic. The poet Shelley wrote that as artists and writers, ‘we must imagine what we know’. We have tried to imagine through images what we know about oil exploitation. We must imagine what we know about Shell. We know that whatever the consequences to life, they are drilling for one thing; dollars.”
