Brighton RBS painted — the lines are drawn

Com­mu­nique from the Fine Line Art Col­lec­tive (FLAC)
Date: 3rd Feb 2010
Address: Old Steine, Brighton
Tel: 01273 821118

In the small hours of this morn­ing the Brighton branch of The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land fell foul of a FLAC attack.

We claim full cred­it for the free pub­lic art instal­la­tion of a fat red and black line of gloss paint on the floor across the door­way of the bank.

Com­mu­nique from the Fine Line Art Col­lec­tive (FLAC)
Date: 3rd Feb 2010
Address: Old Steine, Brighton
Tel: 01273 821118

In the small hours of this morn­ing the Brighton branch of The Roy­al Bank of Scot­land fell foul of a FLAC attack.

We claim full cred­it for the free pub­lic art instal­la­tion of a fat red and black line of gloss paint on the floor across the door­way of the bank.

The black paint sig­ni­fies RBS oil invest­ments and the red paint, the lives that will be lost to cli­mate change.

Black paint was applied to the cash point to cre­ate the impres­sion of oil ooz­ing from the unstop­pable mon­ey machine. This illus­trates the
filthy nature of this banks activ­i­ties. We also proved we CAN stop a small cog in the machine. When we want to.

FLAC — the Fine Line Arts Col­lec­tive — has used this pub­licly owned space — bought with tax pay­ers mon­ey — to pose the ques­tion: “Where do we draw the line?”

Today FLAC mem­bers drew the line at RBS because…

RBS has financed com­pa­nies involved in tar sands extrac­tion to the tune of £8.3 bil­lion. RBS is the UK’s biggest financier of one of the dirt­i­est projects on Earth.

This is destroy­ing the Cana­di­an wilder­ness, forc­ing the indige­nous peo­ple off their lands and cre­at­ing the biggest C02 emit­ter in the world.

FLAC says: “RBS deserves to take some flack for that.And don’t get us start­ed on Chair­man Sir Fred’s £16 mil­lion pen­sion, not to men­tion the bankers’ £1million plus bonus­es.

“We all have to draw the line some­where. We draw the line at RBS using our mon­ey to destroy our plan­et and our future for pri­vate gain. Where do you draw the line?”

Artists notes.

FLAC used gloss paint for this action to sig­ni­fy the per­ma­nence of the bank’s destruc­tive activ­i­ties.

FLAC mem­bers hope oth­er artists will feel inspired to draw a line at their own local branch of the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land. Or indeed any oth­er bank that con­sis­tent­ly invests in human suf­fer­ing and ulti­mate­ly our demise.

Or draw your line wher­ev­er your sense of out­rage deems fit.