Artists and art-lovers, we all believe in the power of art to make a difference. We work with artists to expose the arms fair – painters, poets, performers & the passionate amateurs.
We run a biennial art exhibition to coincide with the arms fair being held in London. We are all volunteers.
We are the proud receivers of the 2018 Nesta & Observer’s New Radicals award and an original Banksy in 2017.
In 2019, the arms fair came back to London – and so did we. Our hard-hitting exhibition, auction and events programme featured work by Sir Anish Kapoor, Shepard Fairey, Hito Steyerl and Peter Kennard.
Held in Peckham, we invited audiences to face the secretive global arms trade head-on and revealed its barbarity and corruption.
We were delighted to host two artist residencies on our Instagram in 2019:
The first residency was with Kris ‘Avery’ Stewart (1-15 June) – a self taught artist from Gateshead, North East England. He works under the brand of AqueminiArts.
The second was with Jill Gibbon (1-15 August). For the past ten years Jill Gibbon has visited arms fairs by dressing up as an arms trader – once inside she draws, and collects gifts from the stalls.
We held an award-winning exhibition, featuring art from Banksy, Peter Kennard, Darren Cullen, Jill Gibbon and Danny Minnick. We also hosted events featuring Cassetteboy, Dizraeli, Attilla the Stockbroker and Kate Smurthwaite.
The exhibition and events attracted global press coverage.
As well as raising awareness, we donated over £200,000 to Campaign Against the Arms Trade and Reprieve.
We thank Guerilla Fund, Lush, Network for Social Change and X-Y for their support.
We are a social enterprise. Any money raised from the exhibition and the events is donated to Campaign Against The Arms Trade (CAAT) and others working to challenge the arms trade.
Company name & number: Art the Arms Fair CIC, 12037255