The True Cost of Coal: presentation by the Beehive Design Collective

A swarm is coming! The Beehive Design Collective- a non-profit, volunteer driven, political arts organization- is headed to the University of New Orleans on Thursday, March 25th. Don't miss them while they're here: at the UNO Biology Building, room 101.

The mission of the Beehive Collective 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.

Most interesting is their methodology. The "bees" (real life people to be sure) create collaborative, hand-illustrated posters of dizzying intricacy. These patchwork “quilts” are synthesized from personal stories related to them in their travels by communities in the global south and across America and then interpreted through this unique visual media form.

Today’s energy corporations and government bodies are continuing to show the extent of their violence and greed as they push their extractive agendas in the “New Coal Rush.” The insatiable demand for cheap electricity has lead to the most extreme, devastating form of coal mining yet, Mountaintop Removal (MTR). MTR is a method similar to strip mining, which can even be seen here in Louisiana at the site of the historic Civil War Battlefield in Mansfield in Northern Louisiana. The True Cost of Coal graphical presentation uses the practice of MTR in the Appalachian region of the US as a lens through which to understand the historical and contemporary story of energy, resource extraction and of American empire accelerating throughout the world. The Beehive Collective will expose the deceptions of clean coal technologies and bring to light the ensuing climate chaos facing the world today.

With a gigantic portable mural-in-process teeming with intricate images of plants and animals from the most bio-diverse temperate forest on the planet, the Bees will share (and seek) stories of how coal mining and Mountaintop Removal affect communities and ecosystems throughout Appalachia and beyond. This graphic also looks to the future, raising questions about resistance, regeneration, and remediation while celebrating stories of struggle from mountain communities. The true cost of coal will challenge all of us who casually flip on a light switch to examine our own connections to MTR- and to think about what we can do to stop it from within our own communities.

Samples of their artwork will be available for review and donation/exchange.