Darren Cullen - Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives

Watch Darren’s films for Veterans for Peace UK based on the Action Man toy series. See https://battlefieldcasualties.co.uk/

Darren Cullen is a satirical artist, illustrator and writer. Cullen initially thought to go into advertising as a career, but he became steadily horrified at the ethical implications involved. He reasoned that “manipulating the desires and aspirations of the public, and especially children, using an arsenal of sophisticated and emotionally damaging psychological techniques is an appalling way to make a living and an even worse way to sustain an economy.”

Darren now makes work about the empty promises of consumerism and the lies of military recruiters, releasing his first comic, an anti-army recruitment booklet sarcastically called ‘Join the Army’ in 2013 (bethemeat.co.uk).

As well as 'Pocket Money Loans' which was featured at Banksy’s Dismaland, Cullen wrote a series of short films for Veterans for Peace UK called 'Action Man: Battlefield Casualties' to draw attention to the way the Ministry of Defence targets children as young as five with its official toy range,

'HM Armed Forces', which includes an RAF Drone Playset. Cullen says he is, “especially interested in the point where the terrible requirements of our system collide with the innocence of childhood. Children’s play, like every other aspect of human life, has been colonised by capitalism, adapted as it is into a sort of childhood training camp for the hard-working consumers and soldiers of tomorrow.”

Website: www.spellingmistakescostlives.com

Darren distributing his “Mini Daily Mail”

Art by Darren Cullen.

A series of fake ads found on the London tube.