Beehive Design Collective
 | |
| Founded | 2000 |
|---|---|
| Focus | resistance to corporate globalization |
| Location | |
Area served | World |
| Method | graphical media |
| Website | beehivecollective.org |
The Beehive Design Collective is a 100% volunteer-driven non-profit arts organization that uses graphical media as educational tools to communicate stories of resistance to corporate globalization. The purpose of the group, based in Machias, Maine, is to "'Cross-pollinate the grassroots" by creating collaborative, anti-copyright images that can be used as educational and organizing tools. The Beehive Collective is most renowned for its large format pen and ink posters, which seek to provide a visual alternative to deconstruction of complicated social and political issues ranging from globalization, free trade, militarism, resource extraction, and biotechnology.
Graphic campaigns
The Collective creates graphic campaigns addressing diverse geo- and socio-political issues. The illustrations are informed and developed through extensive research. The most recent campaign resulted from travel to Mexico and interviews of a broad spectrum of people. The group adheres to self-imposed rules during their campaign production, including absence of literal human depictions, ensurance of cross-cultural imagery, and avoidance of cultural appropriation.[1]
The current trilogy in progress details globalization in the western hemisphere through a series of three graphics.
Storytelling
The Collective's educational work involves storytelling, international lecture circuits using giant reproductions of their posters as storytelling aids. "Picture lectures" feature a 30-feet high graphic and a 6-foot-tall (1.8 m) fabric flipbook/storybook. Audiences are led through a two-hour interactive, conversational presentation. [2]
Print distribution
One of the Beehive's goals in their graphic distribution is to have 50% of each print run distributed to communities in the global south free of charge. The remaining half are distributed internationally for donations. Posters are distributed at a wide range of venues, events, college campuses and academic events.
All of the Beehive Collective's materials are distributed as anti-copyright, and their production is encouraged for non-profit, non-commercial use to assist in publications and productions. The black and white imagery is designed to facilitate ease of reproduction. The Beehive distributes free clip-art digital imagery via their website and graphic CD-ROMs distributed from their webstore.
Graphic chronology
- Biodevastation (2000, redux 2002)
- Homogenization Puppeteer (2000) more info
- Free Trade Area of the Americas (2001, redux 2003)
- Plan Colombia (2002, redux 2003)
- Latin American Solidarity 2003 Conference (2003)
- Maine Social Forum (2006)
- Biojustice (2007)
- The True Cost of Coal (2010)
- Mesoamérica Resiste (2013)
Machias Valley Grange Hall
Since the year 2000, the Collective has been engaged in the restoration of the Machias Valley Grange Hall, located in Machias, Maine.,[3] built in 1904. The restoration labor was sourced from visiting volunteers. It was initially used as the Collective's center of its stone mosaics program.
Annually, the Collective throws a no-cost dress-up dance party of immense proportions called the "Blackfly Ball".[4][5] There are ongoing events such as a weekly Open Mic night and annual Halloween celebration.
In 2007, the Machias Valley Grange Hall was placed onto the National Register of Historic Places. The group also received the Maine State Historic Preservation Excellence Award.
References
- ↑ About Beehive Graphic Campaigns
- ↑ Beehive Collective presentation info and presentation schedule
- ↑ About the Grange Hall
- ↑ They had a Ball - Ellsworth American news report on the Machias Blackfly Ball
- ↑ Downeast Coastal Press Eyewitness Account of Blackfly Ball
