A quick glance up from one’s iPad on the Tube this morning and you could be forgiven for thinking that the advert above your head was just another announcement about Tube improvements works.
But look again (see picture below) and it might be one of a number of subversive adverts that have been plastered across the travel network system aimed at highlighting the fight to close the controversial arms fair in the Excel centre in London’s Docklands, which has been open all this week.
The adverts were designed by artists working for Banksy’s Dismaland theme park, in Margate, Kent. The Dismaland exhibition has a “museum of cruel designs” which contains art about the arms trade, so curator Gavin Grindon said that the protests about the DSEI fair were “a natural progression”.
The poster campaign was part of continued efforts by campaigners to highlight the fact that the world’s largest arms fair - the Defence Security and Equipment International (DSEI) continues to be held in the centre of London despite vociferous protests for a number of years - and a failed attempt by the local council to have it shut down.
Advert protesting against the DSEI arms fair in London
Creative forms of protest over the last week-and-a-half have included a mock Catholic funeral for all the victims of war; sit-in protests; the guerrilla advertising campaign on the Tube network; and this morning a flash mob sit-down peace vigil at nearby Custom House station by Zen Buddhists.
The efforts to curb the arms fair have so far failed as more than 3,000 visitors - including delegates from many countries currently undergoing conflict - will visit the show this week.
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and Azerbaijan are believed to be among the shoppers at the fair.
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