As world leaders prepare for their G8 summit photo op, the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination is touring the UK, inspiring resistance with an exploding caravan, a free feast, prayers to products, a clown army and creative civil disobedience trainings. This week end they will be in Sheffield at the Peace in Park Festival.

The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination presents

Pranksters, Art activists and a rebel clown army tour country in exploding caravan preaching civil disobedience… BUT not as we know it!
"This is not a normal travelling theatre company" Scotland Yard

The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination (Lab of ii) is a space for international and local artists and activists to experiment with new forms of cultural resistance, exploring the interstices between art, politics, creativity and protest. Part of the global movement for social and ecological justice, the Lab of ii believes in moving beyond traditional methods of protest (marches, riots and placards) to forms which emphasise pleasure, love and the subversive nature of play.

Amongst its assorted ranks for the tour will be the Church of the Immaculate Consumption, whose prayers to products are an ironic extension of the logic of shopping as a religious act, and the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (CIRCA), who merge civil disobedience and the ancient art of clowning to mock the powerful and their very big tools.

In each of the 9 cities visited, this motley troupe will tumble out of a solar powered caravan-cum-mobile information unit to present a fabulous, death defying free show featuring Dr Skip Tallahassee, artist activist the Vacuum Cleaner, a human cannon ball and CIRCA’s ridiculous recruitment drive… before serving an unusual feast to the audience.

As well as the show, there will be intensive two-day trainings in non-violent direct action and rebel clowning. "We will train you to be stupid," says General Confusion from CIRCA "polish up your ability to mock authority, help you discover your inner clown and let you taste our favourite tactical manoeuvres of ‘Fishing’ and ‘Socking’."

"The Lab of ii is a subversive cocktail of popular culture and radical politics and that’s the way we like it" says co-founder Lisa Blisset.

An All-Star collaboration of twisters, resisters, subverters, converters, cyclers, recyclers, street reclaimers, anarchists, artists, fartists, permaculturists and mystics, the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination will inspire you to rediscover the power of your imagination and join the resistance against the dictatorship of money.

"Ouch!" is all the human cannon ball will have to say.
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For trainings, book a place on  trainings@labofii.net (places are limited!!).

To accompany the tour the DVD "13 experiments in Hope" has been produced by the Lab of ii and is available from the Live Art Development Agency (info: Lois Keidan,
020 7033 0275)