Never for Money Always for Love

This lecture was presented by Pedro Inoue, Creative Director of the Adbusters Media Foundation, a participating artist in the 10th Seoul Mediacity Biennale Eu Zên. The session explored the history of Adbusters and its parody-based activism from its early beginnings through 2018.

Founded in Canada in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz, Adbusters is an international collective of activist writers, artists, designers, musicians, philosophers, poets and punks trying to catalyze a transformation of the current world order. They publish a bimonthly magazine called Adbusters, run a website at adbusters.org and an activist community at abillionpeople.org.

Adbusters has launched several notorious international campaigns, including “Buy Nothing Day,” “TV Turn-off Week,” and “Occupy Wall Street.” Adbusters magazine is renowned for its use of “culture jamming,” a strategy that subverts and parodies corporate advertising and brand imagery. Through these activities, Adbusters aims to dismantle dominant commercial narratives and create a platform for addressing urgent contemporary issues such as climate change, consumerism, and corporate and financial hegemony.