TEAM ANTICLOPE

With its misleading name, Team AntiClope does not pretend to be opposed to cigarettes, or to their consumption, which is detrimental to the comfort and health of non-smokers. In reality, this project in collaboration with Agence Opale Investigations uses T-shirts and posters to raise the question of our individual and collective responsibilities in communal spaces. While the “anti-smoking” slogan may seem puritanical, in reality it's about coming together around a broader question: to what extent are we responsible for our communal spaces, and at what point does our personal consumption influence these spaces?

These t-shirts, screen-printed by the Institut Sérigraphique in Paris, along with their labels and posters, were accompanied during their two public presentations by readings of texts written by artists invited for the occasion. Team AntiClope was launched in the bamboo garden at La Villette, followed by a performance by Agence Opale Investigations and myself at the Tournée de Fortune exhibition on September 18, 2024 at the former Brasseries Atlas, Brussels.

Maybe, first of all, you simply don't like cigarettes, their smell, their smoke, or even their substitutes like vapes, so wearing this t-shirt is a clear sign of protest. Secondly, perhaps you're a smoker yourself, and wearing this garment is for you a provocation, irony or simple sartorial pleasure. Either way, we can all be part of the same team, and do so by reflecting on the links between our personal consumption and our shared spaces. We're not going to rewrite what others have already done so well, such as Olivier Milleron(1) . Olivier Milleron, cardiologist and activist, whose book invites political and historical reflection on the tobacco industry, a kind of blind spot in thinking about “responsible consumption”. History and science have already proven, again and again, that tobacco production and consumption are extremely polluting and servile. Here, rather than pushing open doors, we invite you to rethink our relationship with the common space. First of all, we need to ask ourselves a few questions:


When we smoke in the street, do we think about the direction the smoke will take? If the majority of our friends smoke, does the minority have to bend to the will of the group when it comes to comfort and health? What happens to cigarette butts discarded on the ground or occasionally in garbage cans? What happens to the used resistors, batteries and clearomizers of so-called disposable electronic cigarettes? Is the smoke from e-liquid just water vapor, even though it's the product of a more complex chemical assembly(2)?

Far be it from us to make you feel guilty, these questions may never have arisen in your daily life if you haven't suffered the consequences. However, they do help us to put into perspective the pleasure of consuming and to understand the polarization that certain types of consumption can create between different groups of individuals. This reflection can be extended, for example, to other types of social relations that take place in shared spaces, such as our relationship with workers in reception, service, catering, public cleaning and so on. All this brings us back to one main question: to what extent are we responsible for communal space and our occupation of it?

The Anti-Clope team is perhaps a research group for new forms of courtesy, to create new ways of thinking that allow us to live together more gently and carefully.


(1)Pourquoi fumer, c’est de droite? Olivier Milleron, Editions Textuelles, 07.09.2022

(2)Such as propylene glycol, vegetable glycerine, flavorings and nicotine,
according to neovapo https://www.neovapo.com/blog/qu-est-ce-que-le-e-liquide-c16


The artists would like to thank Art Majeur Investments for their trust and support!

L'Agence Opale Investigations
L'Institut Sérigraphique