Artist’s Talk: Darren Cullen

17.10.2023

1:00 - 2:00 pm

Art Exchange

admission free

Join us for a talk by artist and activist Darren Cullen, who will tell us about the ideas and inspiration behind his taking on of Shell Oil and creating his Hell Bus, on tour to the University of Essex this autumn.

Darren Cullen will be in conversation with Sally Shaw MBE, Director of Firstsite, Colchester and Dr Matt Lodder, University of Essex.

Admission free – all welcome.

More about Darren Cullen

Darren Cullen aka Spelling Mistakes Costs Lives is a satirical artist and creator of the Hell Bus.

After studying advertising for four years as a student, Cullen became increasingly disturbed by the techniques employed by the industry, as well as advertising’s social, psychological, and environmental effects, and instead he began to make artworks using the language of advertising against itself.

In 2017 he started work on an anti-Shell project inspired by Shell’s greenwash ad campaign ‘Make the Future’ which was followed by 2018 by a cease-and-desist from Shell’s lawyers. But after the posted a series of sarcastic, mocking replies to Shell’s legal demands online, the company incredibly backed down and in 2021 he started work on the Hell Bus.

Other projects include Museum of Neo Liberalism, Pocket Money Loans and the Mini Daily Mail

To find out more visit: spellingmistakescostlives.com