Activists Reclaim Public Space Through Advertising Takeovers–Come Learn How

Subvertising includes the removal, defacing, replacing, reversal and supplementing of outdoor media spaces. The practice arose with the proliferation of modern spray paint in the 1960s and 70s and the take-up of the technology by groups such as the Billboard Liberation Front in San Francisco and the Australian BUGA UP organization – an acronym for the rather extensive name Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions.

While the most subversive of tools in the 1970s and 1980s may have been the spray can and paint markers, today the toolbox of subvertising practitioners has expanded into the realms of professional graphic design, large-scale digital advertising takeovers and Augmented Reality mobile applications. The practice and the diverse range of political issues it exposes has been receiving increasing press coverage in the last years, with a peak in November 2015 when the Brandalism collective took over 600 advertising spaces in Paris during the UN Climate Talks to highlight, in the organizer’s words, "the hypocrisy of the corporate takeover of COP21."

Beyond climate issues, the practice has been successfully enrolled to raise awareness around Australia’s history of genocides, the TTIP agreement and police racism and violence.

Advertising takeovers are an effective form of creative activism in that they allow political movements to reach new audiences on the streets, and if done well, through media exposure, while taking away and occupying some of the corporate messaging that often legitimizes some of the forms of exploitation (e.g. climate change) that political collectives are hoping to overcome.

The process of reclaiming public space is an important one, one that empowers both activists and local communities. Nuit Debout, for instance, holds a workshop every Saturday on Place de La Republique, giving members of the public access to the posters otherwise hidden behind glass, and giving them the opportunity to alter them and put them back on the streets. It’s an effective way to introduce people to civil disobedience. They’re striking a conversation that the advertisers don’t want you to have.

It is in this vein that Public Ad Campaign, the organizer of [this free workshop happening Friday, July 15, in Brooklyn, NY, was born. Public Ad Campaign is the umbrella under which I work as an artist and activist, exploring contemporary public space issues surrounding advertising and art. The group advocates for a more democratic use of our shared public spaces by questioning outdoor advertising and creating new avenues for public communication.

The aim of the Friday workshop is to start bringing back political conversations to the streets of New York, to take ownership of our public spaces, to further defy its commercialization, and to offer a tool for different organizations to expand the audiences that might listen to them. To do this, Public Ad Campaign brings its extensive knowledge of the practice to the workshop, offering activists a practical guide on how to do their own advertising takeovers in New York, how to gain access, how to make the interventions successful, and some of the different ways to achieve this.

Posters and painting material will be brought in for participants to play with, and for them to start exploring some potential ideas for their own advertising takeover campaign. You will learn all the practical skills required to get going, while receiving essential initial inspiration. If New York has a few artists currently employing these spaces, it has yet to see activists take up the opportunities the practice holds for expanding one’s audience and shaping socio-cultural awareness beyond the consumerist paradigm of outdoor advertising.

If you're interested in joining the free workshop at May Day space in Brooklyn on July 15, register here.