Beehive Design Collective to bring visual message to campus during Earth Week
Political arts group presents “Dismantling Monoculture: a visual exploration of the impacts of militarism, free trade, and corporate globalization in Latin America”
A swarm is coming!
The Beehive Design Collective, a not-for-profit, volunteer-driven, political arts organization based in eastern Maine, will appear at SUNY Fredonia on Thursday, April 23 at 12:30 p.m. in the Natatorium Lobby. The event is part of the campus’ slate of Earth Week activities, and is free and open to the public. 
The Beehive Design Collective’s mission is to “cross-pollinate the grassroots” through the creation of images as an effective medium for deconstructing and educating the public about complex geopolitical issues.
The “bees,” as the members refer to themselves, create “collaborative, hand-illustrated posters of dizzying intricacy” which become patchwork quilts of sorts, containing personal stories shared with them by communities in the global south during their travels.
In its provocative “Dismantling Monoculture” presentation, the group takes participants on a “tour” through a larger-than-life graphic trilogy of the multifold effects of globalization, militarism and resource extraction in the Western Hemisphere. The group’s stories ricochet from the rampant consumption of the global north to its impact on the people of Central and South America. Interweaving anecdotes and statistics, they perforate dubious “drug war” rhetoric, expose broad connections between militarism and resource extraction, and show how today’s global economy is rooted deeply in colonialism. In the sequence of their visuals, the members walk participants through pieces entitled, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, Plan Colombia, and their nearly completed Mesoamerica Resiste.
The Beehive Design Collective is currently touring the U.S. to raise funds for the printing and distribution of Mesoamerica Resiste, previewed during its presentation along with a thorough venture through its creative method. Two years in the making, this trilogy-finale is an exploration of widespread resistance to a proposed Central American mega-development project known as Plan Puebla Panama.
For more information, visit www.beehivecollective.org.
