“Adverts try to alter people. So we must alter the adverts.”

Join Adblock Lambeth for an evening of arts activism with Proyecto Squatters (Argentina) and Democratic Media Please (Australia).

Free to attend. Please register to help us gauge numbers.

Proyecto Squatters is a network of counter-advertising artists and activists from Argentina. By intervening in outdoor advertising spaces, they use guerilla art tactics to challenge hegemonic consumer discourses and reveal what the adverts try to hide.

Formed in 2016, the group run workshops in schools, universities and social organisations to encourage critical thinking and counter-advertising activism. Their activities are a form of citizen participation to reclaim public spaces, using art and imagination to confront corporate propaganda.

Democratic Media Please in Melbourne use non-violent direct action to reject and negate corporate advertising spaces in the public realm. The tactics can be simple: a fire extinguisher full of paint is used to de-commission a digital video screen, extended paint rollers are used to block out adverts that grow taller, louder and brighter each year. Driven by a deep seated critique of corporate advertising on our media, which conditios us to over-consume regardless of the planetary impacts, the group remain uncompromising in their commitment to democratic ideals.