Two years ago people from the Beehive Design Collective attended the Denver AAG.
Perhaps some of you were able to interact with them then, or are familiar with
their work from other venues. (We encourage you to check out our work at:
www.beehivecollective.org) The Beehive is returning to the AAG for the 2007
Annual Meeting. I would like to use this opportunity to invite participation by
interested people in their visit to San Francisco for next year's meeting.

Specifically, the Bees will be giving a presentation of their newest graphic
campaign, and are interested in:

- collaborating with geographers to use this or other graphics in classrooms,
- in popular education and organizing,
- and in sharing experiences of research methodology and representation with
geographers.

We are available to discuss:

- distribution of graphics for your or others' use,
- use of graphics in education, mobilization, and research contexts,
- hosting tours of the Bees in your communities,
- and panels or sessions (as part of the formal AAG program or outside it) with
the Bees in San Francisco.

You may contact the Bees regarding the 2007 AAG Annual Meeting directly at:
http://www.beehivecollective.org/english/contactinfo.htm

or through me:
Brian Marks
[log in to unmask]

The following is our narrative on our participation in San Francisco.

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The Beehive Collective would like to return to the AAG to share and communicate
insight about our methodology and to showcase our graphic trilogy on
globalization in the western hemisphere in complete. Our predominant focus will
be the offering of an interactive visual lecture and narrative of "Mesoamerica
Resiste". The product of three years' labor, this expansive graphic tells the
tale of corporate megadevelopment project (known as Plan Puebla Panamá) that
threatens to industrialize and devastate the economy, culture, and environment
of the Central American isthmus.  In a triptych image of unprecedented scale
and complexity, the Bees contrast the designs of the global financial and
investment structures with the broad scale community resistance presently
occurring against the convergence of the megaproject. This graphic documents
the (neo)colonial past and present of Mesoamerica and the resistance movements
to corporate globalization and militarization in the region using graphic
metaphors highlighting the flora and fauna of the region in a striking visual
presentation that conveys the complexity of political and ecological phenomena
in a digestible manner using few if any words.

Mesoamerica Resisté is the most recent work and trilogy finale of our trilogy
about the implications of globalization in the Western Hemisphere. The first
two pieces focus on the economic policy plan known as the Free Trade Area of
the Americas, and on the U.S. supported war on drugs, known as Plan Colombia.
The graphics are populated and animated with a host of hundreds of species of
animals, plants and insects, accurately portrayed, from the ecosystems of the
focal regions.

The Beehive Design Collective is a ?wildly motivated?, all-volunteer, fusion
of arts and activism that has gained international attention for it?s
collaboratively-produced graphics campaigns focused on globalization and
militarization. Our mission is to cross-pollinate the grassroots through the
use of imagery as an effective tool for organizing, education, and empowerment.

The graphic campaigns of the Beehive Collective are the product of interviews
and exchanges focused on the globally pertinent issues of our time:
struggles for sovereignty; the burgeoning of the prison system; widespread
indigenous resistance in Latin America; debilitating trade pacts and
institutionalized debt, biotechnological homogenization of global food and
agriculture; megalithic industrial development plans; and much more.

The work is created through extensive travel and dialogue and research.   The
Bees collaborate with communities affected by the myriad faces of corporate
globalization.  Simultaneously, researchers, specialists, and analysts are also
polled for another perspective of clarity on macroeconomic and historical
context.  Together the stories, data, and inspiration gathered from multiple
sources are then woven together and illustrated to create the intricate,
interleaved ?maps? of our visual narratives. The result is a circuit of
progressions and contrasts, entirely hand-illustrated that inform and engage
the viewer throughout their navigation of the graphic.

All of our work is anonymous and anti-copyright, for free use as popular
education tools. We are working to dispel the tradition of activism that is
based on books, experts, speeches, and 'hoarding knowledge', by creating
communication methods that are more holistic, accessible and invite
participation? inspiring action, instead of passive listening or absorption.
We build and disseminate these visual tools with the hope that they will
self-replicate, and take on life of their own.  The overwhelming success of our
graphics campaigns testifies to the ability of and thirst for visual tools as a
method of conveying ideas in powerful, effective methods often unavailable to
other forms of communication.