In a change from climate activists attacking art masterpieces with soup, a Western Australian art collective has presented giant-sized “invoices” to five corporations it describes as the state’s biggest carbon polluters.
On 14 August, eight members of the art group pvi collective delivered the 2.5-metre-high mock invoices to the Perth offices of Woodside, Chevron, BHP, Glencore and Inpex.
The invoices totalled tens of billions of dollars, which is what pvi collective calculates the five companies owe the community for the environmental and societal damage caused by their C02 emissions.
Kelli McCluskey, the chief executive artist at pvi, told The Art Newspaper the performance had gone splendidly. Despite momentarily being stuck in a revolving door when security tried to stymie them by switching it off, the group successfully delivered the invoices to all five companies, with none of its members being arrested.
Biggest weapon
In contrast with the dour faces of Just Stop Oil activists—the group behind soup-throwing attacks on Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers (1888) at the National Gallery, London, among other masterpieces—pvi regards humour as its biggest weapon.
“We’ve learned that coming at things with aggression doesn’t help,” McCluskey says.
“We need to go the other way, and lead with kindness and humour. I think people are more open to humour than they are to aggression.”
The pvi artists call themselves The Social Licence Watchdogs and wore puppy ears for the purposes of their mock-invoice performance.
While the performance was humorous, pvi’s intent was very real.
“Despite the majority of Australians’ concerns for the fossil-fuelled climate emergency, the world’s biggest contributors to it, some of which have huge Western Australian operations, are largely continuing business as usual or even expanding their exploits with seemingly little or no credible plans to decarbonise,” McCluskey says.
The five companies now have 21 days to settle their accounts, pvi says. A payment plan is available – “six easy instalments of $71bn”.
On show
The invoices will be exhibited in the Art Gallery of Western Australia from August 21 until September 9. Companies that don’t pay on time will have their “social licences to operate” revoked and shredded by pvi collective.
“We’ve tried to let [the companies] know that the invoices will be on public display at the AGWA,” McCluskey says.
“There was an open invitation for them to come down to the art gallery and have a look at how their invoice stacks up against the other top four polluters. We welcome the CEOs and the top dogs to come along as well. Perhaps it could be a family outing or a team-building event to come and have a look.”
pvi was founded in 1998 by McCluskey and her partner Steve Bull. It receives funding from Creative Australia, formerly the Australia Council for the Arts.
In 2016 McCluskey received the Outstanding Achievement in Emerging and Experimental Arts Award from the Australia Council for the Arts.
