Time flies when you’re in Hell
HELL PETROL STATION @ GLASTONBURY
It’s been a hectic couple of months and it’s hard to tell which part I’m still recovering from, but here’s the installation of the Hell Bus crashing into a Hell petrol station at Glastonbury, Shangri-La this year. It was weeks and weeks of work and all over in 5 days.
I barely had a chance to pick through the photos and videos in the aftermath as I was dealing with Hell Bus admin (my favourite!) after I played chicken with the insurance company and lost leaving the bus stranded in the field for a couple of weeks. The bus insurance costs £4000 a year :/ something I hadn’t accounted for when starting all this, but I’d hoped to get a better deal this year but ran out of time and road.
Apparently negotiating insurance premiums with half a brain the day after Glastonbury when you actually need the insurance to drive the bus that same day is not a great strategy. But who could have known?!
But it did eventually get sorted and the bus is currently back at my studio where I plan to fix it up and make some repairs and new additions before it goes on a UK tour of universities in October. More on that below.
This installation was only possible with the time and skills of multiple people and I thank them here on my website, rather than going over it all again here. (I started this email complaining about bus insurance so need to keep the tempo up.)
But special thanks to the Hell Bus crew of Danny, Chris, Em, and pictured here, Kes and Kieran Thomson. Kieran’s been doing his summer student placement at my studio the last few weeks and put a ton of time and skill into the flaming petrol pump. It’s been great having him on board.
The response to the bus and petrol station was fantastic. People loved the petrol pump churning out fake fire and there were some of the biggest queues the Hell Bus has ever seen. That did lead to some breakages however, the perspex to the Lego diorama broke, as did the water vaporiser steaming out of the Shell oil barrel. So it’s going to need some repairs before the tour in October.
To see a video of the petrol pump in action see the video
at the end of this page!
HELL BUS CROWDFUNDER
In order to pay for some Hell Bus repairs and renovations, as well as adding some new exhibits to the Hell Bus before it goes on tour I’m running a small crowdfunder on my website.
You can donate directly or order some Hell merch, all proceeds go towards making the Hell Bus even better/worse and keeping it on the road for another year.
Massive thanks for any and all support!
HELL IN THE NIGER DELTA
I returned from a trip to the Nigeria last week after being invited by Ogoni climate activists from LEDEF to speak at the first climate change conference in the Niger Delta.
While there we went to visit two Shell oil spill sites in the Niger Delta with Ogoni activists, local community leaders, and West African climate experts. It might be the saddest and most enraging thing I have ever seen.
While there I filmed Ogoni community leaders, activists, students and doctors, explaining 
the situation and the suffering of these communities, and captured footage of the ecological devastation Shell and other oil companies have brought to their homes. See below for one of these videos, the rest I need time to edit and upload, and I’ve edited a short film which I’ll post next week.
Shell has been attacking the people of the Niger Delta from both ends. People here are having their lives ruined and dramatically shortened by the spills and leaks and toxic fumes of oil production in their communities but they’re also some of the most heavily affected by climate change. Already floods in this part of the world are far deadlier and more severe than they were ten years ago. Life expectancy in the Niger Delta is now just 41 years old.
I have to admit I was a little bit sceptical of how useful me coming out here would be, like all the information about these spills is available online, photos, videos and data are all out there. But something happened as I filmed Bariara Kpalap speak, an Ogoni community leader (video below), and he was describing how their water wells had now become oil wells they were so contaminated, but the people had no choice but to drink that water anyway, and as he was speaking I looked down and there was oil literally running between my feet and I don’t know what it was but in that moment something snapped inside me.
I didn’t think it was possible for me to hate Shell more than I already did. This trip has radicalised me. I don’t want to shut down Shell anymore I want to wipe them off the face of the planet. They have to pay for what they have done here. Not just financially, in every sense of the word. They have to pay.
The video above is part of a short > 8 min documentary I made about Shell’s oil spills in the Niger Delta, which I’ll be posting on my YouTube channel next week.
Subscribe to get a notification when it’s up!
ART THE ARMS FAIR
I designed a poster for the @ArtTheArmsFair & @dED_ucation art exhibition and auction raising funds to stop the arms fair – when a parade of global arms dealers, aka DSEI, returns to London in September. More info at: www.artthearmsfair.com
IT’S FANTASTIC
Probably a bit late for this but I’ve had some stickers made up with the above design and I’m doing a preorder only run of t-shirts with it on too (before the bots steal it) available in pink, white and black in unisex and women’s cut t-shirts. (There’s a free sticker with each shirt)
The preorder ends on the 2nd August and I’m expecting to post them by the 15th latest so if you want one stick an order in here soon!
I’m also doing an eBay auction of the original painting 
of this to try and raise funds to repair the Hell Bus. Bidding ends on the 6th August, you can bid here.
I made some some newspapers for the Hell Bus Petrol Station installation at Glastonbury including this Financial Times.
BIT MORE HELL BUS
The morning I arrived back from Nigeria I had to go directly to Islington to open the Hell Bus for Whitecross Street Party. Video above of the petrol pump in action, the ‘smoke’ is water vapour. Massive thanks to Gary Seabrook for driving the bus!
Next month’s mailing list will have some dates for the upcoming Hell Bus tour so keep an eye out! I’ll also be posting dates as they’re confirmed at RoyalDutchHell.com
This update is public and shareable so please feel free to pass it on. If you’re not on my mailing list but would like to be you can sign up here.
Eternal thanks to anyone who’s ever backed my work on Patreon or through the shop!
And thanks for reading!
