Brandalism

Brandalism (a portmanteau of 'brand' and 'vandalism') is an activist artist collective founded in 2012 in the United Kingdom which engages in subvertising, culture jamming, and protest art. Brandalism uses subvertising to alter and critique corporate advertising by creating parodies or spoofs to replace ads in public areas. The art is typically intended to draw attention to political and social issues such as consumerism and the environment. Advertisements produced by the Brandalism movement are silk screen printed artworks, and may take the form of a new image, or a satirical alteration to an existing image, icon or logo. The advertisements are often pasted over billboards, or propped under the glass of roadside advertising spaces.

Prior to the formal emergence of Brandalism, similar creative activist movements had existed, using culture jamming, subvertising and détournement to promote a range of social and political issues throughout history. In 2012, during the Summer Olympics hosted in the UK, the Brandalism movement officially emerged. Since then, several public Brandalism campaigns have been launched across the globe. These include during the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris and the 2019-2020 Australian bushfire season, where the Brandalism movement sought to draw attention to topics such as environmental degradation, visual pollution, debt and the representation of body image in advertising.