Head-Turning Fake Ads Protest Climate Change Talks in Paris
Artists from around the world are fed up with major corporations’ involvement in climate change discussions, so they decided to do a little advertising — rather, anti-advertising.
Every year, world leaders gather for the United Nations Climate Conference to discuss and assess the current state of climate change. This year’s Conference of Parties (COP21) is taking place in Paris, where the French government has established a ban on public protests following the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks.
However, protests appear to be happening in other forms.
More than 600 fake ads with environmental messages to major corporations were displayed across Paris this weekend, prior to Monday’s start of the conference.
According to a press release from Brandalism, the U.K.-based project behind the stunt, the posters “aim to highlight the links between advertising, consumerism, fossil fuel dependency, and climate change.”
The artwork comes from 19 countries by more than 80 renowned artists, many of whom were included in Banksy’s “Dismaland” project earlier this year.
Posters overtook many of the ad spaces in Paris owned by JCDecaux, the conference’s official sponsor. The ads mock everything from corporate COP21 sponsors, such as Air France and Dow Chemical, to heads of state, like Barack Obama and David Cameron.
“Because the advertising industry force feeds our desires for products created from fossil fuels, they are intimately connected to causing climate change,” said Brandalism’s Joe Elan. “As is the case with the climate talks and their corporate-sponsored events, outdoor advertising ensures that those with the most amount of money are able to ensure that their voices get heard above all else.”
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