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One thing that has become particularly apparant in the past two years is the concept of the side hustle coming into the mainstream. There has been a massive wave of turning hobbies into profit, which the pandemic has had a massive part in. Long lockdowns indoors turned people to focus on pastimes and eventually, turn to diy-markets online like Etsy to sell items. While this trend has arguably grown exponentially in the past decade, the past two years of coronavirus has truly cemented the idea of a second income based on a passion. But is it beneficial in the long term?
While the idea of side hustles are exciting and look like an amazing way to make money from passion, doing this alongside full time work or many other projects can take a massive toll on mental health. This comes hand in hand with "hustle culture" - interestingly , one of the reasons this trend has grown in the past few years is due to it's adoption from the middle and upper classes. working multiple jobs has historically been a working class normality, out of nessesity and not enthusiasm. Now middle-class workers have the time to build on hobbies and profit, working a side hustle has been glamourised.
While it's not problematic to continue to sell your own work on the side, there needs to be a bigger emphasis on balancing this with time for yourself and your mental health.

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Something I have argued with myself consistently about is whether it is fair to push away people who cannot afford bespoke work to line my pockets. Items that are marketed as sustainable cost far more than their unsustainable counterparts, and with the marketing surrounding them often centered around judgement.

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I was commissioned to design and paint the body of an acoustic guitar. I was given compete creative control - I worked mainly with acrylics and spray-paint with this, using neon bright colours.
Painting an instrument was something entirely new to me, but it has been an experience that has opened up a whole new world of three dimensional painting to me. As a digital and print based artist I do not often get to work with such dramatic 3d surfaces and while there were hiccups, namely with the proportions of my work differing from the original plan, i would do this again. There is a particular joy in painting an object and reshaping it in your style. I find this is especially the case with three dimensional objects not made from scratch. You feel as if you are adopting an object and giving it a new lease of life, rather than feeling a sort of responsibility for the life of a piece you have had control over from scratch. I think this feeling can be defined as "freeing" in this sense - i felt a sense of freedom in the creative control i had over this guitar in a way that, oddly, outshone any feeling of freedom i have garnered from pieces created from scratch.
I want to expand upon this idea and seek out projects (self initated or otherwise) and commissions surrounding the repainting of objects , particulary scrap objects. While this was a functional guitair and not scrap, I feel like the repainting of scrap materials has high potential, both as a natural progression and as a pointed protest to the rising levels of pollution caused by dumping rubbish.

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Developing this piece was very persona to me , but it was also done within a short time constraint so i had little time to plan and reflect on my ideas well. I would change the medium if I have had more time, and do something more larger scale relying on full-colour drawings and not just outline illustration. I want to continue this idea on larger surfaces and really push the idea of displaced bodies and veins.

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In this piece I wanted to look at the idea of fertility from a non-genered perpesctive, seeking to centre trans and femme bodies in something that was both representative of myself and my relationship to my queerness. I think this piece demonstres the complexity of dysphoria as well as the innate connectness we all have as bodies of flesh - something that is a big theme of the exhibition and beltane itself.

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I have been invited to displaye my work at the beltane art show , organised by Stonehenge action group! The themes are around fertility and freedom.

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The Art Newspaper - International art news and events

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Spirituality, astrology and the occult are in the ascendant in the art world, and this year, at the Nada (New Art Dealers Alliance) Miami fair, works channeling the divine feminine and non-binary energies are in abundance. Ari Myers, the founder of The Valley gallery in Taos, New Mexico, credits the migration of people from urban to rural spaces over the course of the pandemic as a contributing factor in a renewed focus on nature and, by proxy, more esoteric matters. “I am seeing a lot more Medieval and mystical symbolism in art,” she says.

At Nada, Myers is showing ceramic works by Amelia Lockwood (priced between $2,300 and $3,700), which the Los Angeles-based artist describes as “power objects” that act as receptacles for energies. During the fair’s opening yesterday, buyers of her work included Beth Rudin DeWoody, the New York and West Palm Beach collector, and Quang Bao, the owner of New York’s 1969 Gallery. Also on the booth are several new gouache and ink paintings by the tattoo-turned-fine artist Aron John Dubois (prices range from $2,300 to $4,600), which draw on his deep interest in Jungian psychology, and the balance of masculine and feminine energies. “Androgyny is a key theme,” Myers notes.

Idols and goddesses

A pregnant Beyoncé recast as Botticelli’s Venus graces an enormous monochrome tapestry by the German artist Margaret Eicher at Galerie Michael Janssen (prices for her textile works range from $40,000 to $70,000). “I like to transfer the iconography of art history onto contemporary idols and goddesses—celebrities and other public figures,” Eicher says. Although the artist does not subscribe to “political ideologies such as feminism”, much of her work centres on the patriarchal structures that have long dominated organised religion, portraying women as either Madonna (the mother) or Venus (the lover).

Non-conforming spiritual energies rather than human colonial binaries suffuse the paintings of Tennessee artist Amber Ahmad, on show with the artist-run TONE Gallery from Memphis. Scorpion and Frog (2021; priced at $10,000 and sold before the fair’s opening) takes its cue from the eponymous folk tale and features alchemical imagery of the Rebis, or divine hermaphrodite.

Meanwhile, at the Vancouver-based Wil Aballe Art Projects, the Ethiopian-Canadian artist Betty Mulat’s photographs (prices range from $3800 to $5000) offer “a contemporary take on female empowerment”, Aballe says. Mulat, who is also a DJ, co-founded NuZi Collective, a Vancouver-based music collective that provides a safe space for women of colour and trans people to party.

Collectively titled Caught Out There: Ragga to Riches, Mulat’s works at Nada evoke the glossy fashion and beauty images found in magazines such as Essence and Jet, in which she “saw Black people and culture represented and celebrated”, Aballe says. Mulat pays homage to them with over-the-top 1990s styling, “to engage notions of camp and narratives around Blackness, class, gender, expressions of pleasure, power, and beauty.”

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Women are worshipped and non-binary energies abound at Nada

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An air of spirituality and mysticism pervades the fair this year, perhaps brought on by a reconnection with the esoteric during the pandemic

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The artistic universe of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis , formed in the early 20th century, was marked by the interaction of diverse artistic ideas of Neo-Romanticism, Symbolism and Art Nouveau. Having embarked on painting career, Čiurlionis did not stop composing music. His artistic work (painting, graphics) lasted six years (1903-1909). He painted many of his works during summer vacations at his parents' house in Druskininkai. He spent the years 1908 and 1909, with intervals, in St Petersburg, where he created his last paintings including the great (1909).

Čiurlionis left a legacy of around 300 paintings and prints. The bulk of the works are housed in the National M.K. Čiurlionis Art Museum in Kaunas, individual pieces belong to different museums in Vilnius, Warsaw and St Petersburg, and several works are the property of private collections.

Čiurlionis' painting captivates not only with its mysterious content and picturesque imagery, but also with its original artistic form. Čiurlionis' art is closely aligned with European Symbolism by similar themes and motifs, and symbolic treatment of the subject matter. At the same time, noteworthy was his ability to think fairly independently from the leading artists of the time and create paintings of totally new plastic form, namely pictorial sonatas, preludes and fugues. By fusing painting and music into a unique artistic formula, these paintings have significantly enriched European Modernism. With his investigations into the plastic vocabulary of painting he cut his way into Modernism much deeper than any other artist of Central and Eastern Europe.

In the context of the 1900s art, Čiurlionis' paintings of 1907-1909 are considerably innovative. He broke ground with his ingenious method of abstraction, which is based not on colour, but on the graphic-spatial organisation of the painting, offering one of the most unique formulas for applying the musical principle in painting. Thus he belongs to the ranks of the pioneers of abstract art.

Čiurlionis started trying his hand at drawing and painting while still studying at Leipzig Conservatoire (1901-1902). His artistic attempts from 1903 - painted postcards he sent to brother Povilas - are compositions for his future paintings.

In 1904, a fully schooled composer, Čiurlionis enrolled in the Warsaw School of Art where he created his first paintings ( Danger, 1904; The Rustling of the Forest, 1904; The Piper, 1904; cycle , 1904-1905; etc). His early works are dominated by images of night, dusk and sunset. Secrets lurking in the dusk, the elegy of nature, inexplicable human fears and strange modes from tender lyricism to fatalistic horror are blended together here. Animisation, a popular principle of Symbolism, in which natural forms, such as a mountain, a bell, a cloud, the tops of the trees, are painted so as to be reminiscent of human or animal forms, is frequently employed in his paintings ( from picture-cycle A Day and , both 1904-1905; , 1906). However, the artist eschewed concreteness of form and content, making the ambiguity of the image invisible at first sight. In his early period of creative output he favoured symbolic motifs such as distant light filtering through forest foliage, sea, boats, fantastic gates, and music-making angels. This iconography points out Čiurlionis' association not only with Western European Symbolism but also culture of art nouveau and fin de siècle in general.

Čiurlionis was interested not only in literature of the time, but also science - history, philosophy and astronomy. He read philosophical works of Kant, Descartes, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. He was also interested in theories, which analysed imaginary visions and perceptions, and discussions how to activate the creative power of imagination. Čiurlionis' oeuvre emphasises his predisposition to philosophical issues: man as part of the Universe, man's relation with the Absolute (deity, ruler, Rex). He investigated these themes in a number of paintings among which the most significant are Creation of the World (1905-1906), The (1906-1907) and Rex (1909).

There are marked changes in the plastic character of Čiurlionis' painting around 1906-1907: from narrative symbolist vocabulary he turned to a more expressive painting. This development toward higher degree of professionalism in painting is best illustrated by the cycles (1906) and (1907). The latter cycle incorporates just a few traditional 'narrative' images: the natural motifs are daringly transformed and generalised, they are invested with various associative meanings. Nature often was the leading source of creative inspiration for Čiurlionis. He sought not only to document the landscape, but also provide it with philosophical meaning. The central composition of the triptych (1907) is striking. Not so much because of the degree of visual generalisation and developed principle of linear rhythm in the painting, but due to the attempt to dismiss and overcome traditional mimetic understanding of painting. The principal means of expression here is line. Čiurlionis seeks to obliterate any manifestation of actual reality by employing the plasticity and rhythmic quality of line. The trace of reality, however, remains part of this composition in the motif of flower/star. This triptych is an audacious experiment by Čiurlionis to test the possibilities and interaction of shape and line. Indeed, principles tested here form the basis of the most idiosyncratic body of Čiurlionis' oeuvre, namely pictorial sonatas.

In his pictorial sonatas, preludes and fugues executed in tempera on paper (1907-1909) the artist revealed his unique ability to employ in painting a visual dialogue characteristic to musical form. He did not 'paint music', but rather with composer's expertise adopted plastic equivalents of musical means of expression: rhythm of line and plane, flexibly waving forms, 'overlapping' of several levels of landscape creating an effect of expanded space (ex. Allegro from Sonata No.2, 1907).

Čiurlionis painted seven pictorial sonatas: Sonata No. 1 (Sonata of the Sun, 1907), Sonata No. 2 (Sonata of the Spring, 1907), Sonata No. 3 (Sonata of the Serpent, 1908), Sonata No. 4 (Sonata of the Summer, 1908), Sonata No. 5 (Sonata of the Sea, 1908), Sonata No. 6 (Sonata of the Stars, 1908) and Sonata No. 7 (Sonata of the Pyramids, 1909). The artist named them by numbers (the literal titles were adapted later), which shows him as being of modern thinking. Čiurlionis' pictorial sonatas can be associated with a theory of synesthesia, the marriage of music and art, that branded the early 20th century as well as Wagner's idea of Gesamtkunstwerk ("total artwork"). At the same time, Čiurlionis' pictorial sonatas embody an original approach to the issues of synesthesia. The Lithuanian artist applied to painting principles of the musical composition, which have associations with the structure of musical forms (such as sonata, fugue or prelude). He united various motifs from reality, different spatial levels and moments in time, as well as contrasting symbolic images into a single compositional system (cycle), based on the dynamics of the rhythm ( Allegro, Andante, Scherzo, Finale). Čiurlionis created a certain system for synthesising the principles of music and painting, based on generic correspondence: the volume of musical sound corresponds to the intensity of colour and outline, musical tempo corresponds to the plastic-linear rhythm, whereas the particular part of the musical composition corresponds to the position of a painting within the cyclical structure.

Čiurlionis' painting was rendered more abstract by the application of the structural and compositional elements of music. Nevertheless, none of the so-called 'musical' paintings could ever be considered a totally abstract work of art, for he was always concerned with idea of the cycle, its 'plot' communicated through symbolic links between separate motifs. The ideas of his paintings are generalised (journey, creation of the world, ruler of the world, element of nature, cosmic order), linked with mythology, Lithuanian legends, fairy tales and folklore. Čiurlionis' thought is often philosophical and symbolic, structure of the composition - abstract, while details of the painting fairly concrete. This contradictory triad is united by his unique principle of synthesising painting and music, and his ingenious graphic-spatial method of abstraction. And all of this stems from his comprehensive knowledge of musical principles.

In 1909, in addition to pictorial sonatas the artist also worked on neo-romantic works that were simpler in terms of compositional structure. Some of them are marked by retrospection characteristic of the fin de siècle epoch ( Castle Fairy Tale, 1909; , 1909; , 1909), while others epitomise the spirit of Lithuanian nature and Lithuanian mentality as understood at the time (Lithuanian Graveyard, 1909; Graveyard Motif, 1909).

Čiurlionis' painting is a very important affidavit of the level of modernity of Lithuanian art in the early 20th century. In his painting, his experience as a composer, symbolist visions and art nuoveau insights amalgamated into a unique artistic phenomenon encoding the germs of some of European Modernist trends. The compositional structure of his paintings, level of abstraction of motifs, weightiness of plastic element in Čiurlionis' painting echoes with the beginnings of abstract art epoch in European art of the 20th century. Yet, Čiurlionis belongs to European Symbolism as a follower of the spiritual ideas of the movement, loyal to the movement's themes and motifs and symbolic treatment of his subject matter. He was especially close to one particular trend in Symbolism, which spread across Russia, Poland and Scandinavia, pursuing the metaphysical dimension through the depiction of nature. This was the tradition of Nordic Neo-Romanticism, a considerable influence on the cultural milieu of early 20th-century Poland and Russia. Čiurlionis' work embraced, crystallised and interpreted these multiple artistic ideas at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries that also have humanist and cultural importance to the community of the 21st century.
Rasa Andriušytė-Žukienė

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The artistic universe of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis , formed in the early 20th century, was marked by the interaction of diverse artistic ideas of Neo-Romanticism, Symbolism and Art Nouveau. Having embarked on painting career, Čiurlionis did not stop composing music. His artistic work (painting, graphics) lasted six years (1903-1909).

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While this project started with me looking closely at the textures and colours used I moved on (while still retaining the progression and texture ideas). Something that fascinated me towards the later development was Ciurlionis's use of symbolism and esoteric imagery in his work, something that took direct inspiration from medieval esoteric imagery at the time and zodiac beliefs. This supernatural flair to the work produces beautiful but almost cartoonish results where wild concepts interact with vastly textured landscapes on his paintings. As my tarot SIP centered heavily on symbolism i think this really brought me towards this direction. These two projects have complemented eachother in this way, with my DPG project shifting deeply towards symbolism.

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Something that has captivated me through my research is how ciuirlionis looks at emotion and sadness through texture. a lot of his life was spent ill and downtrodden, and a lot of his paintings represent a sadness larger than himself - a national , lithuanian sadness. I am not lithuanian so i cannot possibly understand this concept as deeply as somebody who has experienced it, but Ciurlionis's paintings relecting his personal sadness is something I can reflect upon in my inspired work. Looking at this and the deep colours used I wanted to look at making a more three dimension product range, to do with a natural material - teacloths and socks,etc.

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Here you really start to see the aesthetic coherency of the product range transform

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overall i'm very happy with how this project panned out and the feedback i got in person from DPG. presenting in person in front of DPG was nerve wracking but worth it, though i felt i stumbled a bit and rushed through my presentation with a lack of time, but this made me very glad to have printed samples to be passed around during the presentation, allowing people to look at the designs in more depth instead of just a few seconds on a slide. I think while the amount of time spent developing this project did overly encourage me to develop more ideas, this may have not been the best thing for this projects overall development. Midway through the project I had too many ideas so the decision to cut back and only propose a series of designs was the most beneficial thing i could have done for the project.

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Ahead of our free panel event on 1 March, we discuss how creativity can envisage the future. Joined by a handful of our New World: Creating for Tomorrow contributors, we'll be investigating how they plan to build a more inclusive and equitable future.

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New World: How can visual artists utilise their work to envisage a better tomorrow?

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Ahead of our free panel event on 1 March, we discuss how creativity can envisage the future. Joined by a handful of our New World: Creating for Tomorrow contributors, we'll be investigating how they plan to build a more inclusive and equitable future.

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Collective of illustrators “We believe in making a social impact contributing our individual styles”
We are open for collaboration / DM us

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I have joined Collective Canvas, a collective of DPS illustration srudents focusing on collaborative work. Our first project was an Earth day mural on the LCC walls - my first large scale mural project! I was super excited about this and it was really refreshing to interact regularly with people my age and from my profession - i feel like online interaction can be souless and often isolating socially so working so hands on with other people i felt comfortable with was amazing. we also got a lot of passer-bys and student complements while drawing. Through, the painting part was very public, right at the front of lcc. This experience as a whole was very invigorating especially in terms of connecting with other illustrators so close to the start of our final year. I really hope we can take this collective into 3rd year and use our talents in tandem to create more large scale projects like this. I also loved how we only had a very loose set plan and instead learned in real time how to weave our styles and designs together to make something coherent, on the ground - it was refreshing to have something like that come to fruitiion naturally and quickly as opposed to weeks of planning and deliberation.

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i feel like the design industry has a very blurred concept between collaboration and competition. This is a line i would prefer to be defined, and i want to seek out working relationships that are collaborative, where a team builds on eachother through feedback and group brainstorming rather than targeted competition between co-workers.

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I can't call this much of a proper SIP with a set goal , more of a consistent activity happening before DPS and after. Using the screenprinting and riso workshops at LCC, I print products for my online shop, which I am in the process of moving (and in this process re-doing most of the stock )

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All my completed cards!!

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I skewed off from my original timeline by a lot. this is mostly due to my time being consumed with DPG. I also want to prioritise the quality of the illustrations over the quantity, so my goal changed to reflect this. i now want to illustrate the major arcana for now and use that as a proposal to NJAS, and focus on polishing those designs and refining the overall visuals of the product.

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The history of the interpretation of the tarot is very interesting to me especially in terms of the aesthetic. many cards particulary the fool have been re-interpreted over time with symbols and motifs to aid intepretation contstantly changing. i find this significant to my project as i aim to completely redesign the deck, but i still want to pay odes to the original deck visually. I am using the majority of the symbols included in the rider-whaite deck but interpreting them in my style - and also representing the figures how i want to no creative constraint.

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for my research into tarot cards i have a lot to consider in terms of how abstract i wanted to make them... and how closely in tune to my style. as a representation of my brand i felt it was fit to centre the aesthetic coherency of this around my own style. But still, am left with the conflict of how true to the traditional deck am i going to make these.

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As we have more time on this project i have had a lot of time to marinate over my designs and develop more refined versions of what i would have presented otherwise. The ideas for products have changed a lot but what has stayed consistent is the aesthetic of my designs, focusing on the deep rich colour palettes ciurlionis used, puntucated by my signiture bright handimarks. Considering this I decided to pitch this as a set of images DPG could buy the rights to , and include samples and exmples / suggestions for products in final pres.

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I'm really enjoying looking into Ciurlionis's work as part of this project, especially seeing the similarites of our work in terms of texture. I also appreciate the regular meetings with feedback , but i keep changing my idea - i iniitally started off thinking about teatowels but right now i'm considering a knitting instruction manual. I like the amount of ideas coming from the research but i'm having trouble deciding.

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I am now involved in a live brief with DPG, a gallery in dulwich who are curating a coming up exhibition on the works of Ciurlionis, a painter from Lithuania.
The brief is to create a product/range inspired by his work.

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while remote working veers more and more towards the idea of digital nomadism, this directly constradicts one of the key (and only) way we as consumers can be more ecologically friendly. Shop locally to shop ethically applies to more than food - working locally brings local communities together, often in the face of gentrification, and allows a local community to thrive from wihin culturally, not just relying on a larger cultural source.

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On 10 October 2004, Eric Dooh received an urgent call from one of his father's employees: the waterway surrounding their houses was running black with oil. Near the outskirts of Dooh's village of Goi, a pipeline built by Royal Dutch Shell in the 1960s carried oil from inland Nigeria to an offshore terminal where it would be barreled and exported around the world. Dooh suspected the pipeline had sprung a leak. He attempted to alert the pipeline operator, but both Shell and its Nigerian subsidiary had largely abandoned oil operations in Goi a decade earlier in response to local uprisings. On that day, Shell's community relations officer was unavailable, Dooh recalled. He reported the leak to a nearby police station instead.

It wasn't until the next day that officials climbed onboard a helicopter, ascended over Dooh's village situated on the banks of the Oroberekiri Creek in Nigeria's southern Niger Delta region, and confirmed what villagers already knew: oil was spreading and not letting up.

Later that day, the situation in Goi went from bad to worse. Oil spilled into a local farmer's house and connected with a cooking fire. The village, its oil-seeped creek and the surrounding mangrove forests erupted into flames.

On 12 October a team of investigators - made up of locals, government officials, and employees for Shell's Nigerian offshoot, Shell Petroleum Development Company - located the source of the leak: an 18-inch hole in an exposed portion of the pipeline. They temporarily plugged the split pipeline with wood chips and later sealed it with a clamp, but over the course of the three-day leak, the operators never shut off the flow of oil at its source. By then, more than 23,000 litres of oil had spilled and nearly 40 acres of mangrove forest had burned, poisoning the land and fishponds that were the lifeblood of the village.

Shell would later argue in court that locals brought the disaster upon themselves; the leak was the work of saboteurs, they claimed. Vandalism and theft are common in the region, but so too is old and abandoned pipeline infrastructure that's prone to leaks. Dooh and his father, Barizaa, who was the chief of their village, attested the oil spill was the result of a poorly maintained pipeline.

Two years dragged by before government agencies began clean-up efforts around Goi. "We were eating, drinking, breathing the oil," Dooh said. By 2010, six years after the initial leak, Goi was still too polluted to sustain its residents. The Nigerian government ordered them to abandon their homes and permanently evacuate Goi. By then, most of the villagers, including the Dooh family, had already moved away, scattered across nearby towns.

Today, the oil industry in Nigeria faces a reckoning with Shell at the helm. According to Amnesty International, the oil company has come under "unprecedented legal scrutiny" in recent years for its negligent and criminal practices in the Niger Delta. Several lawsuits are ongoing while others have culminated in courts ordering Shell to pay plaintiffs billions of dollars in damages. The mounting pressure has Shell considering a rapid departure from the region's oil market. In early August 2021, the company announced it would sell off all remaining onshore oilfields in Nigeria, citing challenges with community unrest, sabotage and a company-wide refocus on promoting green energy. But locals and lawyers see the move as Shell ducking its responsibility to clean up after itself. A court in March barred Shell from selling any more assets in Nigeria while the company appeals against a ruling in which it was found liable for a 2019 oil spill and ordered to pay affected communities nearly $2bn in damages.

"It is incomprehensible to imagine that if these spills and this level of pollution occurred in North America or Europe that it would be allowed to happen," said Mark Dummett, the director of Amnesty International's global issues programme.

Dooh and his neighbors were among the hundreds of thousands of Niger Delta residents who had suffered from spills in the half century after Shell discovered oil in the region. Dooh and his father set out to put an end to the industry's legacy of environmental pollution, corporate greed and human rights abuses. But seeking justice and compensation for their losses was not for the faint of heart. For one, they would be going up against a multibillion-dollar, multinational conglomerate with a team of experienced lawyers at their disposal. Then there was fear of arrest and reprisal. Government security forces provided security for oil companies and often responded violently to protests and uprisings against oil pollution. In 1995, the Nigerian government hanged nine environmental activists, who became known as the Ogoni Nine, named for the Indigenous Ogoni people, who spoke out against Shell's pollution.

Accountability was hard to come by. But Dooh and his family had lost everything: their village, their thriving chicken farm and bakery, their fishponds and livelihoods. They wanted Shell to pay.

In June 2005, less than a year after the leak in Goi, residents of another village about 90 miles west called Oruma reported seeing oil "bubble out of the ground". Over the course of 11 days, an estimated 63,600 litres of oil had spilled from a nearby Shell pipeline. Then in August 2007, in the village of Ikot Ada Udo, about 100,000 litres of oil leaked from an above-ground wellhead that was built by Shell in 1959 but never used for oil extraction, according to court records.

To barrister Chima Williams, an environmental and human rights lawyer in Benin City, the string of oil spills were not one-off accidents spread out over a few years, but the result of a larger pattern that he was intimately familiar with. As the executive director of the non-governmental organization Friends of the Earth Nigeria, Williams wanted to make a statement that would reverberate across the oil industry. He embarked on a search for the most polluted communities in the region, visiting more than 20 villages that had been devastated by recent oil spills.

Williams came across Eric and Barizaa Dooh, as well as three other farmers and fishermen from Oruma and Ikot Ada Udo. Their lives had been upended by a cycle of oil spills and inaction; Williams knew he had a strong legal argument to build four separate cases against the oil company. And so on 9 May 2008, lawyers hired by Friends of the Earth Nigeria and its Dutch sister organisation, Milieudefensie, sued Royal Dutch Shell and SPDC in the Netherlands.

It was a David versus Goliath battle: a group of Nigerian farmers and fishermen and an environmental rights NGO taking on one of the largest oil conglomerates in the world. The lawsuits were unprecedented; never before had a European court ruled over a corporate liability case in which the plaintiffs were foreigners and the incidents in question had happened overseas. But justice would not be swift; the court cases - fraught with complexity, appeals, obstruction and delaying tactics - would inch along for more than 13 years.

By 2009, Eric Dooh had taken over as lead plaintiff in their case after his father became ill. When he traveled to The Hague to testify in court, an event that drew global attention, Dooh said he felt like a celebrity. Before delivering his testimony, he became gripped with fear. "I have never experienced that before," Dooh recalled. "I had not even traveled by air, let alone talk[ed] in the midst of white, white, white, people who will be questioning you."

Shell, for its part, would not give in easily. The company employed well-honed stalling tactics. For the first few years of legal proceedings, Shell lawyers argued that a Dutch court had no legal standing to hear a case about incidents that happened in a foreign country. Then they said Shell was not responsible for the 2004 leak in Goi in the first place because they believed it was caused by local saboteurs. Investigators found soil had been dug up around the pipeline, possibly before the leak. The team of government officials and Shell representatives called to the scene noted in their initial report that oil leaked from a straight slice of the pipeline, indicating, they said, it had been sawed.

It is incomprehensible to imagine that if these spills and this level of pollution occurred in North America or Europe that it would be allowed to happen

Mark Dummett, the director of Amnesty International's global issues programme

Shell's legal team rejected allegations that the 40-year-old pipeline had not been properly maintained, but they refused to hand over evidence proving so, claiming it had been lost. Once they eventually did hand over the maintenance records, the documents were so heavily redacted they were illegible, according to Channa Samkalden, a lawyer representing Friends of the Earth and the plaintiffs. The delaying tactics continued. The courts ordered Shell to assemble a team of experts to travel to Goi and investigate the cause and impact of the oil spill. For two years, Shell delayed this process, citing security concerns in the Niger Delta, Williams said.

The strategy to draw out the court proceedings did far more than test the plaintiffs' patience and resolve. By the time the group of fishermen and farmers heard the court's verdict, three of the four original plaintiffs in the case, including Dooh's father, Barizaa, had died of either sickness or old age.

On Friday 29 January 2021, Dooh, Williams and a handful of environmental activists and journalists gathered in the event hall at the Visa Karena hotel in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. They connected by videofeed to a courtroom 4,000 miles away in The Hague, Netherlands, where three judges in black robes and white jabots prepared to deliver their long-awaited decisions.

Just before the judges read the verdicts, the internet connection in Port Harcourt cut out and the videofeed went blank. Dooh waited in silence until Samkalden, sitting in the Netherlands, called them to share the news.

In the case of Dooh v Shell, the Dutch Court found the Nigerian subsidiary SPDC liable for damages caused by the October 2004 oil spill. Shell's Dutch headquarters, however, were not held at fault. The court also ruled that SPDC acted unlawfully by not discontinuing the oil supply to the pipeline. The oil company was ordered to compensate Dooh for damages incurred from the spill and the fire, while also finding it liable in two other cases Williams and his team had brought.

Environmental and human rights activists hailed the verdicts as historic, landmark rulings that would help pave the way for victims of oil pollution around the world to seek justice and compensation from companies who have acted criminally for decades.

The dominos have since started falling against Shell. In February, the UK supreme court agreed to hear the cases of two other Niger Delta communities, Ogale and Bille, who are suing Royal Dutch Shell and SPDC for widespread environmental pollution. In August, more than 10 years after a Nigerian supreme court first ruled it must do so, Shell finally agreed to pay the Ejama-Ebubu people approximately $111m in compensation for oil spills that occurred in the 1970s.

"A global standard has been set that the oil companies will not only be held responsible for the destruction they cause to any of their host communities but will also be reprimanded and held to take steps not to further destroy the environment and source of livelihoods of citizens," Williams said to the press immediately after the court judgment was announced.

Dooh, today in his 50s, still visits Goi, now only skeletal remains of the once bustling village where he grew up. He can point out where the mangrove forest stood before it burned down in the 2004 fires, where his father kept his chicken flock, where an old shrine to crocodile deities once stood. At his fishponds, oil sheens still fray from the water's edge, dead fish float at the surface. In the village's one-room school, hip-tall weeds have cracked through the concrete floor. Moss, mold and mildew spread up the walls. Small plots of farmland have succumbed to the encroaching bush. At the village entrance, a rusted signpost reads, "Public Notice, PROHIBITION! Contaminated Area, Please Keep Off."

At the edge of the village, Dooh, wearing his signature green togokpéé, a chieftaincy dress, and his father's red cap, recalls that his grandfather was a celebrated palm wine tapper but that because of the oil pollution, there are hardly any raffia palm trees left to tap. The crocodiles too are all gone.

"It is like a museum for now," Dooh says of the village. Standing in a back room of his father's now dilapidated bakery, he laughs at the determination of a tree that has grown through the ceiling. When he receives his compensation from Shell, he plans to rebuild the bakery, establish a vocational school and provide jobs to his community.

"I will reinvent this place," he says. Dooh hopes to rebuild his father's legacy and pass on his prosperity to his daughter, Queen, who is studying accounting in school.

While the string of successful lawsuits has ushered in a wave of hope among Niger Delta residents, it remains unclear if real justice and change will be delivered. Seventeen years after the Goi oil spill and more than a year after The Hague ruled in Dooh's case, the legal teams continue to negotiate a compensation package for the plaintiffs. (Shell confirmed that negotiations are ongoing but declined to comment further on this case or their activities in Nigeria.)

"It feels very inappropriate to claim a victory like that, knowing that we left our clients without any relief until this very day," said Samkalden, the attorney helping represent Dooh. "The real difference needs to be that relief for victims of environmental abuses, human rights abuses abroad, can be obtained within, if not weeks or months, at least within a couple of years, but not like here: 15 years or so. It is kind of ridiculous."

Meanwhile, Dooh and other community leaders lament the passage of a new law that various experts say aims to attract domestic and foreign oil industry actors and make the Nigerian oil market less risky.

"That is another round of battle," Dooh said. "It is the global community that is advocating for green energy. Now you are inviting the world to this environment again for bigger industry for oil production. Is this part of the world the dumping ground? Are we not human beings?" Dooh asked.

This article was amended on 3 June 2022 to refer to Friends of the Earth Nigeria as an environmental rights NGO, rather than a human rights NGO, and to describe Milieudefensie as an organisation rather than a company.

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'We were eating, drinking, breathing the oil': the villagers who stood up to big oil - and won

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The fossil fuel industry faces a reckoning in the Niger Delta after disasters made it one of the most polluted places on the planet

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Adopting an environmentally approach has become mandatory for major corporations because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up putting them in line with consumer sentiments on these matters. Several corporations are trying to save face by claiming that they are switching to renewable energy, but in spite of the fact that this is the case new research reveals that many of their stated carbon reductions are false and predicated on bad math.

RECs, or Renewable Energy Certificates, play a role in the claims that these companies are making. A corporation can basically pay for a project that will generate renewable and sustainable energy and subsequently receive an REC in exchange for that. However, new research published in Nature Climate Change suggests that corporations are exaggerating their claims with all things having been considered and taken into account. For example, certain brands that state that they only use renewable energy are still using fossil fuels, they just buy renewable energy in the hopes that this will make up for that.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that the 115 companies that the team behind this research looked into all claimed to have collectively reduced pollution causing energy usage by 30%. This was done in a four year period up until 2019, and according to this research the figure is grossly exaggerated. The actual reduction in fossil fuel energy usage was around 10%. This is better than nothing, but it is only a third of what these companies actually claimed.

The problem with switching to renewable energy is that it is hard to do so if you are still using electricity from the grid. Grid based power can be acquired from multiple sources both renewable and non-renewable, and the idea behind RECs is that they fund the production of renewable energy which will ostensibly replace fossil fuel based sources in the future by incentivizing energy companies to invest the REC money they receive into them.

Also, RECs don't always reduce fossil fuel based energy consumption or production. They may be yet another example of how corporations us underhanded techniques to give the impression of progress without actually letting true progress occur. The environmental crisis will not be solved by such stopgap solutions. Appearances won't matter when the planet becomes too hot to be habitable, so it is up to use to hold corporate entities accountable for all that they do. With time quickly running out, these RECs and other similar programs might be wasting the opportunities that we have right now to fight climate change.

Read next: Half of All Cars Sold by 2030 Will Be Battery Powered Electric, New Forecast Reveals

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digital information world: corporations are hiding their carbon emissions with bad math

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Adopting an environmentally approach has become mandatory for major corporations because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up putting them in line with consumer sentiments on these matters.

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Something i've encountered a lot is a lot of start up "sustainable" brands and bigger brands re-marketing as "green" actually have little to no sustainable practises and terrible working ethics. what is the point of calling yourself harm reductive if your company mistreats workers and cuts corners on materials and cost?

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Ever heard of greenwashing? You have probably been fed lies by many companies that wave the flag of sustainability, or so they say.

Today being "green" seems on the lips of every spokesman, marketer and business executive, but are all of their companies telling the truth or is it just a mere marketing effort because they know that customers want a greener world?

" Greenwashing" is the term used to describe this type of deception that companies use to depict themselves as sustainable. The deception lies in the fact that it is just a mere marketing effort, and the resources that should be used to make actual products and services are instead spent to attract new customers by proclaiming that the product is green and sustainable.

A clear example could be "Paper Bottle" released a few years ago. The company had produced a plastic bottle but covered externally by a layer of paper. From the outside it looked like a paper bottle, but inside the plastic was present, even if it was hidden from the eye of the consumer.

Only by being aware of how paper reacts to liquids and all those oily products, as well as creams, could one understand that there was something suspicious in that package. Only materials such as plastic could preserve the content of that bottle. Once someone published an image of the open cut bottle, revealing its content, the web world stormed the company. The same, she argued that it was only a "Paper Bottle" brand, and that they had never confirmed that it was 100% made of sustainable recycled paper.

The company defended itself, saying that it was just a brand name "Paper Bottle", they never stated that it was 100% made from sustainable recycled paper.

Greenwashing can also be harder to spot; most companies usually state on the packaging the added value of their product or its containers like "20% fewer sugars" and "made from 30% recycled plastics".

Regarding the last one, unfortunately, the truth, especially for products that are moulded, is the fact that 30% recycled plastic comes from the waste of the mould itself, which is then re-melted and moulded again. This gives a false depiction of using plastic coming from actual waste.

What is the solution to all of this? I confirm that it is not all black and white. Many companies are actually putting the effort to be sustainable! Take the example of our paper and plastic material supplier UPM Raflatac, a Finnish producer of materials for sustainable packaging and labelling.

I always like to cite from them the Forest Film, which is a material produced from an organic waste coming from the paper production from pine trees, which is their resing. Resin can be cured and turned into a polymer and can then be used to create clear films.

This company also have "gas stations" where citizens in Finland can fuel their car with a sustainable biofuel made from the same resin of the pine trees!

I hope that this article made you a little more suspicious of the world around you; remember that the companies that are really changing the world of sustainability do make a great impact, and they should not be overshadowed by the marketing efforts of other shady players!

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Greenwashing sucks: what is greenwashing? | Oppaca

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Ever heard of greenwashing? You have probably been fed lies by many companies that wave the flag of sustainability, or so they say. Today being "green" seems on the lips of every spokesman, marketer and business executive, but are all of their companies telling the truth or is it just a mere marketing effort because they know that customers want a greener world?

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Come Halloween, when spooky films marathon on TV and creepy decor hangs in your holiday-enthused neighbors' yards, things get a little mystical. To celebrate one of the most magical times of year, we wanted to look into the history of tarot cards.

Though today we associate them with the occult, tarot cards were originally just another card game-one similar to modern-day bridge, in fact. Like other decks, the first recorded tarot cards showed up in Europe in the 15th century, with the most popular sets selling in Italy to wealthy families. The printing press had yet to arrive, and since hand-painted cards were all that existed, it cost a considerable amount of cash to commission what was essentially dozens of teensy paintings.

Like any deck, these early tarot cards-tarocchi cards, in Italian-had suits, trump cards, and even pips. Since they hadn't yet become an excuse to dip into the occult, the only reason anyone thought to disapprove was when the cards led to excessive gambling.

While some people dabbled, the widespread use of tarot cards for divination only took off in the late 1700s, when Frenchman Jean-Baptise Alliette published the first definitive guide to tarot card reading. Pseudonymed Etteilla, he wrote a guide to using the cards and released his own deck alongside it. He gave meaning to each of the cards, incorporating beliefs about astronomy and the four elements. He claimed to have borrowed heavily from the Book of Thoth, an Egyptian text supposedly written by Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom.

He gave meaning to each of the cards, incorporating beliefs about astronomy and the four elements.

Etteilla was also the first to assign a specific order and spread to the cards, both frontwards and backwards-a system still used today. His works took off and he published a revised edition of his guide in 1791, becoming the first person to be a professional tarot reader.

1909 was the next time tarot cards received a major update. The Rider-Waite deck, courtesy of publisher William Rider and tarot reader A. E. Waite, is still in use; you've probably seen the illustrations. Like Etteilla, the Rider-Waite deck included a printed guide on how to read the deck and the meanings of each card. In this deck, the intricacy of the scenes told a story when cards were placed together. The latest tarot card revival in the 1970s is the result of a reprint and revision of the Rider-Waite Deck, along with a new guidebook by Stephen Kaplan.

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A Brief History of Tarot Cards - Articles

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Come Halloween, when spooky films marathon on TV and creepy decor hangs in your holiday-enthused neighbors' yards, things get a little mystical. To celebrate one of the most magical times of year, we wanted to look into the history of tarot cards.

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For my main SIP, I am redesigning the traditional 78 card tarot deck . This is a hefty project that may go over the time of DPS but I am enthuastic to take it on as a long time fan of the aesthetics of tarot

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I feel like i really flourished with the iris is being followed concept designs, and working closely with the MA students was also very helpful in both in terms of fast feedback and making connections. We changed the inital design a lot during the movie posters but felt that each stage and concept aided the script as a whole.

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working with the colours set and looking at redesigning a brand suited to gen z has been very fufilling. being of that generation, i have a lot of insight already - the development within the constraints of the brief helped this a lot , too.

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Overall I’ve really enjoyed the way the map turned out, I’ve posted the results in this padlet as well as variations. The portraits I am also happy with though looking back there are some changes I would have made (just in terms of the fundamentals). But the colour palette has shone through and I am really excited to present them

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I am working on the Movie Posters brief with the MA Screenwriting students – my two assigned posters are Iris is Being Followed and the Book of Jay.

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I am pleased to blog that I am now working with Laavuh, a queer events organization recently set up. I made this connection through Talentworks (Feminist Library project) and it will be done mostly remotely. Laavuh aims to connect queer people in a way that doesn’t centre around alcohol and clubbing. We had a very passionate conversation about this , and all agree that due to the historical oppression of queer people, queer culture has been pushed to nightlife only – to meet other queer people , you sadly have to be willing to drink which makes it hard for recovering alcoholics, non-drinkers, and minors. Laavuh’s aim is to create a sober space welcoming to younger queer people who want to connect with others in a safe way.

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INTERVIEWS: All our interviews were phone interviews bar Elizabeth who we interviewed in person. While at times this made it hard for us to properly communicate due to signal issues, it was enlightening to hear stories from these women. One thing that struck us was the amount of community spaces they talked about in Southwark, and how they’d helped the local people. This was a subject change from the original interview plan which was to ask about their personal lives – none of the women were interested in talking about that, just the projects around the borough that had helped others. Bettina and Olive, the two other women talked particularly about the community support towards refugees and vunerable families during the first lockdown, and how ordinary people were hand-delivering packages of food to their doors when they were unable to. It was not all positive though – a lot of this food was donated from their own pockets as the council had failed to provide adequate support, a theme that the Library and Refugee Centre has come across a lot. The library had been almost shut down several times and shoved out of it’s original more central location, and even now is still hanging by a thread. I feel like we gathered a lot of info during these interviews though, and did a lot of brainstorming with Nana surrounding our final outcome.

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The Library project so far has been very enjoyable – I am travelling between the library in peckham and LCC’s digital workspace to work with supervisors. Nana, the person organizing the project from the Library end , is lovely – she has gotten us into contact with the women involved. We also got a whole afternoon of exploring the library. I did this with my photojournalism counterpart, as my advertising co-worker was working online. During this visit we took a lot of photos and recorded the colour palette of the library for future visual reference.

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I am doing a placement through artstemps with Southwark Council and the Feminist Library to interview several local women and create a visual narrative that shows their commitment to the community and library. I have been selected for this project and put in a group with Advertising and Photojournalism students -  I am looking forward to this open collaboration!

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https://www.lakwena.com/

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LvHq9bk_QyXrCSwAT30UvcM_S8tkzhWnqh5tWlVP33c/edit?usp=sharing

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^ MY REFLECTIVE WORKFLOW

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More than an illustrator : Design Conversationalist . Visual musician. Aesthetic dissident . Media disruptor

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my page for creative self workshop

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The visual quality of my map is derived from topology mapping to give a geographical feel to this mapping project.

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pasted for future ref here with handy links and notes
Key take aways:

You have a distinctive illustrative style. Building on your personal interests, such as, activism, social media, consumerism and materialism, I’d suggest that you can start to develop a body of work that’s based around content and narrative. This will enable you to build a portfolio of illustrative pieces that tell a story or illuminate a subject. This will be useful for editorial work.

Additionally, to help you develop an understanding of agents, licensing etc for illustrators, you can consider working for an illustration agency. Also, very useful sites as a point of reference for how contemporary illustrators communicate their practice.

Tasks:

· Start developing illustrative pieces around a ‘context or narrative’

· Research illustration agents

· Start researching / developing an understanding or art direction and design to support your curation pathways.

Links:

https://www.letsbebrief.co.uk/kelsey-dake-drawing-for-dollars/ https://www.letsbebrief.co.uk/?s=keen+eye+ http://oomk.net/ https://centralillustration.com/ https://www.martinapaukova.com/

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https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_lSFaiAg=/
screenshot of miro board

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https://miro.com/app/board/o9J_lSFaiAg=/
I made a MIRO draft board for my mindmap where i just roughly mapped out my plan for the year as well as links for later help.

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who am i?
I'm casper file, an illustrator and designer and storyteller