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Christopher
has been a local media activist in Minneapolis since the year 2000.
He began his activist career while studying at the University of
Minnesota, where he earned an undergraduate degree in political
science in 2001. Volunteering with the Ralph Nader presidential
campaign in 2000 helped open Christopher's eyes to problems with
the mainstream media.*
Media bias against Nader and other third party candidates who challenge
the two party system goes a long way toward making such candidates
"unelectable". Conveniently, after the mainstream media
ignores or maligns these candidates to death, they then dub them
unelectable.
Later
in 2000, Christopher put on a film screening of the ground breaking
documentary about the 1999 protests against the World Trade Organization
titled "This is What Democracy Looks Like" at the Bell
Auditorium. The film deals with, among other things, the inaccurate
and/or limited mainstream media coverage of the WTO protests. Most
mainstream media went out of their way to justify the heavy handed,
disproportionate actions of police at the WTO protests. Proceeds
of the sold out screening were donated to the Twin Cities Independent
Media Center (TC-IMC) to be used for starting an alternative newspaper.
Christopher volunteered with the TC-IMC from 2000 to late 2003.
He was also a cofounder of the Counter Propaganda Coalition (CPC),
a media activism group which was spawned by a protest on October
30, 2002 at the offices of the Star Tribune. The paper was targeted
for protest because of its horrible coverage, just days earlier,
of the first big protest in Minnesota against the then impending
war in Iraq.
Since
September of 2001, Christopher has been designing and screen printing
original political t-shirts. He initiated this counter propaganda
t-shirt project in response to the blitzkrieg of racist, pro-war
propaganda that hit the United States just after the September 11th
attacks. The collective psyche of America was throbbing with the
pain of loss and plastered with propaganda. Flag manufacturers were
in 24 hour production mode, attacks against Muslims were rampant,
and nationalist blather was on everything from television screens,
bumper stickers, bus shelters and billboards to gas station signs,
church bulletins and urinal screens. Suddenly, it wasn't enough
to just yell at the television in defiance of lies, distortion and
misinformation. Christopher was compelled to find an outlet of expression
to help counter the propaganda being spread so thick. He chose t-shirts.
Simply
put, wearing your point of view on your chest may be the easiest,
most practical and legal way to express your opinions to people
outside of the choir who often shun activists handing out flyers.
Christopher's controversial t-shirts such as "Will Kill for
Oil" (featured in Milton Glaser's 2005 book titled "The
Design of Dissent") are a radically different take on current
events than what you get from the mainstream media. He
has twenty-two different t-shirt designs (sold on his website WWW.CONTEMPL8.NET)
which address issues like racism, war and peace, civil liberties,
abortion, media reform, gay rights, and more.
Christopher
has sold his t-shirts at organized events like the Powderhorn Art
Fair in Minneapolis (where he received the Spirit of the Powderhorn
Community Award in 2005), and guerilla-style at many events such
as the protests of the 2004 Republican National Convention in New
York. While in New York City, Christopher also protested the war
in Iraq, the Bush gang, and the Republican occupation of Manhattan.
In the spirit of the protest he wore an improvised George W. Bush
war crimial costume consisting of a bright orange Guantanamo-Bay-style
prisoner jumpsuit, a George W. Bush mask, and the original cardboard
Will Kill for Oil sign that was used to shoot the photograph
which is printed on the Will
Kill for Oil t-shirt.
He wore this Bush costume
in Minnesota at a protest or two as well.
In
addition to printing his original counter propaganda t-shirts, Christopher
also prints custom t-shirts and other clothing items for bands,
political candidates, student groups and others. He prints on sweatshop
free t-shirts and uses water-based ink (an indelible and less toxic
alternative to the carcinogenic PVC-based plastisol ink which is
used by most screen printers).
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