The Beehive Design Collective | Special Collections & Archives

Beehive Design Collective Materials

The Beehive Design Collective is a wildly motivated, all-volunteer, activist arts collective dedicated to “cross-pollinating the grassroots” by creating collaborative, anti-copyright images for use as educational and organizing tools. [They] work as word-to-image translators of complex global stories, shared with [them] through conversations with affected communities.

"Who We Are." https://beehivecollective.org/. October 4, 2022.

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Water walk

Beehive Design Collective

Digital image. Grayscale with exception of flat blue background.

Imagery of personified animals existing among each other in a state of collaborative harmony. Various animals (bear, deer, turtle, fish, frog, snail, rabbit, etc.) interact with each other, performing tasks such as serving each other food, providing medical care, playing music, giving gifts, etc.

Designed to raise awareness for the 2011 Water Walk, a uniting of waters from all directions of the earth. The Eastern direction of the Water Walk that year started from Machias, Maine, where the Beehive Design Collective ... Read More
Fueling climate chaos

Beehive Design Collective

Black and white (B&W) digital image. Imagery of gas-powered vehicles (cars, motorhome, logging truck, dump truck, oil tankers, etc.) circling in a cyclone-formation and expelling plumes of smoke in their trail.

Created for Rising Tide, an international collaboration of groups who take direct action against root causes of climate change and promote community-based solutions to the climate crisis.
... Read More
True cost of coal

Beehive Design Collective

Black and white (B&W) digital image.

In addition to the primary "True cost of coal" image, this project includes a written narrative (English, Spanish, and Dutch versions) intended to accompany the poster. It also includes a press kit with the following sections: "About the Project," "Reviews & Love Letters," "Press Releases & One Sheets," and "Frequently Asked Questions." These narratives, press kit, and their components are available for download within this record.

From the press kit: "The True Cost of Coal is a narrative illustration developed over 2 ½ years ... Read More
Maine drain

Beehive Design Collective

Alt title: Nestle's Maine drain

Color, digital image. Backdrop is image of the state of Maine. A giant water-bottle-monster - with Nestle branding - sucks the state's water resources through straws as onlookers (various personified critters - moose, lobster, raccoon, etc.) protest and defend their water sources.

Designed for Defending Water for Life to explore and educate about the issues surrounding, and mobilize against, Nestle's attempts to privatize water in Maine.
... Read More
Resist the G8

Beehive Design Collective

Black and white, digital image. English text reads: "G8 Summit: a private party - each year the leaders of the world's eight most industrialized countries meet to craft their agenda for the rest of the planet - they are few... - Crash the G8 bash! - Global solidarity: an open invitation - our liberation is interconnected from wherever you are...realize grassroots power and take action to confront global tyranny! - We are many!

Imagery includes 8 ghoulish looking diners - each representing a country of the G8 - sitting at ... Read More
Biojustice

Beehive Design Collective

Black and white (B&W) digital image. Foreground includes post-apocalyptic imagery of what appears to be gas-engined-grocery-store-shopping-carts that contain grenades, oil/tar, and other biohazards/hormones/chemicals, that have contaminated the food inside the carts. The background is a juxtaposition of fertile corn fields being naturally pollenated by bees and moths. Along with other text, "Say NO to Genetically Engineered Food" is prominently displayed within the imagery.

This poster is part of the Beehive Design Collective's first graphic campaign. Designed in spring of 2007 as a promotional poster for the annual BioDevastation Conference. The ... Read More
Dismantling monoculture

Beehive Design Collective

Black and white (B&W) digital image. Sketch art depicts bees performing industrial labor, including milling, sewing, farming, and manufacturing. This poster was created to advertise the Beehive Design Collectives' traveling exhibit. Text reads: "The Beehive Design Collective Presents Dismantling Monoculture - Tales of ants and economics in the Americas - With huge portable murals of collaboratively produced illustrations, a six foot tall fabric picture book, and an engaging narrative...the Bees will take you on an interactive visual tour of the connections between colonization militarism, and resource extraction in the Americas." ... Read More
Dismantling monoculture

Beehive Design Collective

Black and white (B&W) digital image. Flier created to advertise a Beehive Design Collective traveling exhibit.

Imagery of ants huddled around a camp fire. Text reads: "Beehive Design Collective Presents an illustrated storytelling of our latest greatest graphics - Dismantling monoculture - Tales of ants and economics in the Americas - With huge illustrations, a six foot tall fabric picture book and an engaging narrative... the Bees will take you on an interactive visual tour of the connections between colonization, militarism, and resource extraction in the Americas." A blank space ... Read More
Resist biotechnology

Beehive Design Collective

Black and white (B&W) digital image.

Text reads: "have you noticed things looking the same wherever you go? Does the homogenization of culture disturb you? So what about biotechnology? They say it will save the world. Corporate control of life itself is going too far... Let them know you dream of a different future. Resist the commodification of life. Resist biotechnology"

Imagery includes an ominous looking man holding vials of spilling liquid and syringes. His eyes bulge with dollar signs and the text "Government" and "Industry" are prominently written on ... Read More
Maine social forum

Beehive Design Collective

Color, digital image. Main text reads, "Maine Social Forum / Reflecting the Global in the Local." The poster's image depicts various personified animals (moose, raccoon, puffin, lobster, etc.) standing over a small puddle-sized body of water that is shaped like the state of Maine. The water's reflection carries the image of a different set of animals (Octopus, toucan, elephant, etc) peering back to the animals on land. All animals are interacting with items of symbolic nature, signifying solidarity, grassroots organization, peace, self defense, comradeship, etc.

Beehive Design Collective's first full-color ... Read More
Latin America solidarity

Beehive Design Collective

Black and white (B&W) digital image. Imagery of ant colony working in solidarity to de-militarize and destroy a tank-like war machine. Text reads: "Mobilizaciõn against military and economic intervention in Latin America and the Carribean / En contra de la interventicion economica militar en Latin America y el Cariba / Washington DC April 4-11 2011"

This graphic was originally created in collaboration with the networks of the Latin American Solidarity Coalition for their mass mobilization in Washington DC in the spring of 2003. It was re-released for a similar mobilization ... Read More
Plan Columbia

Beehive Design Collective

Black and white (B&W) digital image.

"Plan Colombia" is part of the Beehive Design Collective's trilogy of graphics about globalization in the Americas. This is the second in the Beehive's anti-globalization trilogy. This poster focuses on Plan Colombia, an aid initiative that included U.S. funding of military and counter-narcotics efforts in the Andean region. It is an anti-war poster "that exposes the mythologies of our times, interweaving the complex stories of corporate globalization with the grassroots resistance that has risen to combat it."

Complex narrative, metaphorical image reflecting anti-colonialist and ... Read More
Free trade area of the Americas [and the global resistance to corporate colonialism]

Beehive Design Collective

Black and white (B&W) digital image.

"A map of interconnections, showing the impacts of corporate globalization on all life on the planet, and celebrating global resistance to big and bad ideas... The FTAA poster was the Beehive's first large scale narrative graphics campaign, and became the first in a trilogy of graphics about globalization in the Americas" -- Beehive Design Collective website (http://beehivecollective.org/beehive_poster/free-trade-of-the-americas/)

In addition to the primary "Free trade area of the Americas" image, the Beehive Design Collective also created a narrative meant to accompany this poster. This narrative ... Read More
¡Mesoamérica resiste!

Beehive Design Collective

"The third poster in a graphic trilogy about free trade, militarization, and corporate colonialism in the Americas ... a map drawn in old colonial style depicts the modern invasion of megaprojects planned for the region ... and opens to reveal the view from below, where communities are organizing locally and across borders to defend land and traditions, protect cultural and ecological diversity, and build alternative economies." -- Beehive Design Collective website (http://beehivecollective.org/graphics-projects/mesoamerica-resiste/)

Taking 9 years to complete, the double-sided poster documents stories of resistance to the mega-infrastructure development plan Project ... Read More
Biodevastation

Beehive Design Collective

Black and white (B&W) digital image. Imagery of post-apocalyptic corn field: Corn sprouting syringes, butterflies wearing gas masks, skull-and-crossbones, biohazard symbology.

Created in the spring of 2000 as an outreach poster for the 4th annual BioDevastation Conference in Boston, a gathering of grassroots organizations opposed to the BIO industry's annual meeting.
... Read More