Kehban Grifter / Juan Manchu

this poster about the "Free Trade Area of the Americas" was created by two of the worker bees, Kehben Grifter and Juan Manchu at the Beehive Design Collective. The Beehive's mission is to provide agitative, inspirational, and informative imagery for grassroots organizing on turning point issues. As young Americans that have survived the first generation to be raised on junk food, video games, and television, we are passionately focused on overhauling the imagery that's been forced upon us. As these "interesting times" speed forward with immense irony, we reclaim space from these mental enclosure by illustrating the intersections of myth, reality, intricate connection, and disconnection. Our goal: weave foresight into the collective conciousness with diligent, strategic cross-pollination of graphics that speak to the crossroads at which we now stand. Our anti-copyright graphics are used as political organizing tools that help to break down overwhelming, cold, scientific, and abstract topics through images that speak to the effects of current issues on our everyday lives... the FTAA poster has a narrative explanation we present to audiences (with help of large stage banner reproductions of the image) as a "tour" of the effects of globalization and the push of this trade agreement in specific. A "coloring book" version of this tour is under construction, as well as the next poster in this series, focusing in on the issues around Plan Colombia. Our collective will be on tour with this presentation around the northeast U.S. in the fall of 2001, then Cuba, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil in winter of 2002. We are interested in creating a theatrical, or puppet version of the image, and would love to hear from folks that are interested in collaborating with it's replication or distribution. In the Spring of 2002, we will be working on posters about Nanotechnology, and are looking for collaboration in this production, as well. More about what we do: he BIODIVERSITY CROSSROADS mosaic mural project has begun! We are embarking on a five year (or more) adventure in the construction of a 600+ sq. ft. STONE MOSAIC MURAL to be permanently installed throughout the floor of the exhibition hall of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners assoc. fairgrounds in Unity, Maine (Home of the Common Ground Fair.) The mural, with collaboration in design from a broad spectrum of farmers, farmworkers, activists, prisoners and youth will illustrate the "History of the struggles between traditional & industrial agriculture" with intricately detailed images of huge insects and plants in cartoon storyboard format. The method we employ is the traditional hand-cut stone designs crafted from small squares of polished marble & granite. The hive offers a formal apprenticeship program from our rural land project's studio in an old Grange Hall (farmers labor organizing hall) located far downeast in coastal Maine.

contact:  Printed versions of our graphics and more info on our projects is available from www.beehivecollective.org. You can reach us at: Beehive Design Collective 3 Elm street Machias, Maine 04654 (207)ALL-OPERA graphics@beehivecollective.org 

"Free Trade Area of the Americas - Global Resistance to Corporate  Colonialism". This is a political propaganda poster and a tool to be used to discuss the issues of globalisation with few words. We are looking for people who would be interested in using this tool in the work that they are doing in their own communities, and who would be interested in helping us distribute this image to the various people who are represented in the issues it discusses. Please get in contact with us if you are interested in collaborating. Here is the Web of Globalization, showing its effects on the earth and all its victims caught in its grasp.  The Free Trade Area of the Americas is a trade agreement, essentially a major extension of NAFTA, now under negotiations that will involve all of the countries in the western hemisphere, except Cuba. Meanwhile on Earth, the development spider decimates the land with its chainsaw teeth.  One of  his arms is drilling oil in the Arctic and the other is drilling oil offshore to power its spinning machine that weaves roads, power lines, and pipelines. The militarization  spider, with his bandelaro of hypodermic needles and American flag bandana, has his guns aimed on Central and South America, most notably in Colombia.  Plan Colombia is a US backed military operation under the guise of the drug war, which exacerbates the countries social problems by aiding and arming the notoriously brutal and corrupt Colombian armed forces.  The operation involves massive aerial spraying of deadly herbicides, some of which are genetically engineered by Monsanto. You'll notice each of the details on the poster attempts to illustrate, without words, the effects of the FTAA trade policy.  Details on the landmass include the NAFTA and Pan-American  superhighways and proposed dry canals and shipping ports in Central America.  The DNA shaped smoke trails represent the overhead  spraying of genetically engineered tree plantations and Monsanto's involvement in Plan Colombia. On the arctic poles icebergs are being dragged away in chains referring to Japanese corporations interest in breaking the Antarctic treaty to use the precious fresh water in computer manufacturing. And just to distract you and make you think everything is OK there is the third spider, "John Q Big Guy" who represents the corporate media, corporate culture, and the internet.  He's clutching onto the earth with Nike teeth and hooks, and has television and the NASDAQ index blinding his eyes.  His main corporate sponsor is Microsoft.  A media tower with a Disney satellite dish radiates signals which form yet another web that's all around us.  He's weaving a web of generic, corporate controlled culture, with copyright signs and UPC codes for music notes…culture made for commerce, not community. Have you noticed that resource issues like oil and energy are emphasized by all three of these spiders, while they are busily privatizing things that we absolutely CAN'T live without…  like air, land, and most importantly,  water? Caught in the spider web, along with the earth, are the struggling cocooned victims of the consequences of so-called  "free” trade. - On the far left, labor issues and the plight of sweatshop workers in the maquiladoras are represented by a howler monkey caught in a cocoon of sewing machine thread. -The sheep is education, tempted by the carrot on a stick, wrapped in the chains of debt. -Above is a frog symbolizing privatized health care and patented medicine. The frog best represents illness, since it is an indicator species, suffering the effects of pollution before other creatures.  It also alludes to vivesection and animal testing issues in science and medicine. -The sea turtle symbolizes ecological issues and the extinction crisis. She is trapped in the remnants of a fishing net and six pack ring. -The monarch butterfly is a victim of the effects of biotechnology.  She is wrapped in DNA strands and wearing a gas mask to avoid genetically engineered corn pollen that is deadly to  the monarch caterpillars. -The crow is trapped in the prison bars of the growing prison industrial  complex. -The mouse, wrapped in it's umbilical cord, being forced to reproduce, is a symbol of the encroachment on women's reproductive freedom.  It also highlights the patriarchal aspects of cloning and biotechnology research which push to eradicate the role of the natural biological functions of women. -The rabbit is a peasant farmer with a backpack sprayer wrapped up in a pesticide hose, planting patented seeds, symbolizing the dilemma of corporate agriculture. -The polar bear, surrounded by pipelines, speaks of oil exploitation on indigenous land and environmental racism. -The bison, wrapped in barbed wire, struggles with borders and native land issues. As these spiders weave their webs, in their wake they are stirring up the Earth’s  water supply,  which is being drained out through two giant faucets. Between these spigots, two spider cops in riot gear are hanging a banner quoting the World Bank; "THE NEXT WORLD WAR WILL   BE ABOUT WATER."  This detail comments on the co-optation of protest culture and message...’cause next thing you know… in order to promote their policies as a panacea and confuse the public, the World Bank and IMF might try doing banner hangs about poverty…. As the water is being drained into the metropolis it is pumped to resource intensive industries.  The office bees are fastidiously working away, each in their cubicles, typing away at their computers… jacked up on coffee and coca-cola it takes to keep the machine going. In the "break room" cell of the hive are discarded computers, with screens illuminating facts about the resource and waste intensity of computer manufacture.   Two Monsanto bees are depicted on either side of the city in their ivory towers of science brewing up another batch of Nutrasweet, instead of honey, to keep the bees buzzing feverishly in their offices.  As the water moves through this industrial  grid, it is transformed into polluted smoke and sewer sludge, piped out to the country side through the fortress  wall of the city. This is symbolic of the wall erected during the recent Summit of the Americas in Quebec, which aimed to prevent dissenting voices from gaining access to these secretive meetings.  These protests brought international   attention to the critique  of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. The now polluted water is pumped back out to the eroded countryside, that has since been sucked dry of its natural resources. What was once the fertile soil of farmland and wilderness, has been reduced to cracked earth where the peasants must struggle for their livelihood.  The above ground resistance has swelled to an uprising as the harvester ants approach from the North and South of the Americas in an attempt to regain the resources that have been stolen from them.  Marching in from the left (the global South) waving flags in Portuguese and Spanish is the representation of the Movimiento Sem Terra, a landless peasant movement little   known to the North,  yet as inspiring and broad as the struggles of the Zapatistas in Chiapas. Meanwhile, a surly little ant spray paints on the symbolic wall, in French,  "Autogestion", a common Quebecois graffiti   slogan that loosely translates into “self-management” or “self-birth.”  Rushing in from the right, are the North   American resistance movement armed with some of the methods of anti-globalization movement, like the Biotic Baking Brigade (pie-tossing),the radical cheerleaders (pep-ralleys with political lyrics),  the black bloc tactic (well,most ants are always in black) and the bike circus (.pedal-powered political puppetry). Simultaneously, in the underground, the ants carve the words "Global Resistance to Corporate  Colonialism" in the anthill tunnels below the city. The illustration   shows how the industrial  web, power lines, water mains, and fiber optic internet cables have replaced the roots of what was once healthy soil.  The ants are hacking into this web to power their organizing networks and to create their own independent media, broadcasting their struggle for truth on pirated airwaves in defiance of the dominant paradigm.  This underground resistance, tirelessly reclaiming the soil and saving seeds, is constantly working to build a more sustainable society. They divert the once stolen water towards the seeds of hope they're planting. Ironically, the ants undermine the infrastructure  of the grid by using the tools of the system against itself. All the while, these agents of compost understand, that to build a new world from the ashes of the old, that the technologies that even they now use must be reliquished in the society they work to create. 

Trato de Commercio Libre de las Americas-Resistencia Global al la colonizacion imperialista. Esta obra es al mismo tiempo un cartel de propaganda y una herramienta para discutir un tema muy complicado en pocas palabras. Estamos buscando gente que quierre usar esta herr- amienta en el trabajo que hacen en sus communidades, y quien les gustaria ayudarnos a distribuir esta imagen a todas las comunidades que estan representados en esta imagen. . Como es una imagen complicada vamos a ofrecer un mapa. mirando el letrero desda lejos, esta el hemisferio occidental atrapado en la telarana del comercio incorporado. Hay tres aranas: la de arriba a la izquierda representa el desarollo y la urbanizacion. Debajo de esa esta la arana de militarismo, y la "guerra contra drogas" en Colombia. La ultima arana representa propaganda, noticias y telecommun- icacion. En el planeta se pueden ver muchos detalles do como se esta transformando el mundo. En una escala mas grande podemos ver que en la telarana hay varias victimas de la globalizacion del comercio. Vamos a dar una breve explicacion de cada uno: Un mico envuelto en los hilos de su maquina, representa los obreros de las mazuiladoras. La rana representa la privatizacion y patentado de varias medicinas. La oveja es un estudiante envuelto on las cadenas de la deuda. La tortuga esta esrangulada con la basura y es la polucion del ambiente y la amenaza a las especies en peligro de extincion. La mariposa monarca es un ejemplo de las especies que sufren por la ingeneria genetica,(en este caso el maiz) A la derecha del planeta hay un mirlo enjaulado que representa los millones de personas encarceladas. La ratona envuelta en cuerdas umdilicales representa los derechos reproductivos. El oso polar esta envuelto con tubos do petroleo, simboizando la manera en que sufre la gente indigena cuando viene una compania para extraer sus recursos minerales. El conejo es un agricultor envuelto en su manguera de pesticadas, que muchas veces esta obligado a usar. Y finalmente el bisonte, Envuelto en una alambrada, representa las las fronteras, que han dejado el paisaje tajado pedacitos, y la gente indigena obligada a vivir en reservaciones. Al fondo del planeta hay una metropoli de abejas, trabajando en sus oficinas, tomando siempre su cafe, y escribiendo en sus computad- oras, apoyando el sistema. Se puede ver que hay do espitas gigantes que estan echando los oceanos a la ciudad donde estan trabajando las abejas. Entre las espitas, dos aranas policias han colgado una bandera que dice: "La proxima guerra mundial sera sobre agua", que es algo que dijo el banco mundial. A cada lado del metropoli hay dos grupos de hormigas insugentes. Las que estan a la ezquierda representan el movimiento sem terra en Brasil. Las que estan a la derecha representa el movimiento de resis- tencia en el norte. Al fondo estan las hormigas subteranias En sus excavaciones escriben: "Resistencia global a la colonizacion imperialista". Se puede ver que estan cortando los cables del sistema, y haciendo diferentes cosas con el poder, como comunicacandose entre ellas para organizarse, poniendo una estacion de radio clandestina, sembrando semillas, y anunciando noticias independientes por computador para socavar el imperio.

contact: www.beehivecollective.org