#NotACrime: Human “Beans” in London’s Shoreditch

The #NotACrime campaign, a worldwide street art project to advocate for human rights in Iran, extended to London on January 6 with a new mural at the famed Village Underground street art wall on Holywell Lane in Shoreditch.

Dave the Chimp, a British artist and illustrator based in Berlin, began painting the new work. His depiction of human “beans” parading placards with positive slogans is a major new contribution to the campaign and focuses specifically on the persecution of Iran’s Baha’i religious minority. His work mixes cute and childlike styling with political messages. The mural will be accompanied by up to 20 smaller pieces across London.

The smaller pieces will be miniature versions of the mural and spread across East, South and Central London. Location details will be on the #NotACrime website and each will be changed periodically during the campaign.

The work is being curated by Cedar Lewisohn, the international street art curator, whose work has previously featured at the Tate Modern. Lewisohn will also lead the execution of Dave the Chimp’s mural and his smaller London-wide pieces.

#NotACrime works to stop the human rights abuse of Iranian Baha’is – who are barred from studying and teaching at universities because of their beliefs – and encourages universities around the world to admit Iranian Baha'i students. IranWire founder and director Maziar Bahari, a former Newsweek journalist who was jailed in Iran and became the subject of Jon Stewart's film Rosewater, started the initiative.

"This campaign marries old and new forms of communication; street art, very similar to cave paintings, and modern social media activism. It will spark an important conversation," Bahari said.

“I’m grateful that we’re able to shine a light on how the Iranian government is mistreating the Baha’is as I believe it serves as a barometer for understanding whether Iran is ready to operate like a modern and rational government,” he added.

“I am extremely pleased to be a part of #NotACrime,” said Lewisohn. “I believe that art in public spaces can be a powerful force in reaching wide audiences. Dave the Chimp’s piece will take a complex political subject and make it understandable for people who will see it in London over the next few weeks, as well as the global audience online.”

“Street Art has always been a political act for me,” Dave the Chimp said, “a way to remind people there is freedom available for them if they are willing to believe in a better world and do the work needed to create that reality. And as Whitney Houston said: children and young people are our future, the unwritten story that can be truly amazing, just so long as they are given the freedom and education they need to be the authors of a better world. To deny young people education is to deny us all a brighter future.”

Iran’s Baha’is are the country’s largest religious minority. Baha’is are frequently jailed on false charges and denied access to higher education. There are 71 Baha'is currently imprisoned and more than 200 were executed in the early 1980s after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Thousands of Baha'is are currently studying through an underground education system known as the Baha'i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE). At least nine Baha’is are currently in jail simply for teaching BIHE students.

#NotACrime began in New York City in September 2015 with 11 murals on education equality and freedom of expression across the city. Leading street artists from around the world, including the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Italy, and South Africa all painted artworks designed to provoke conversation about the Iranian government’s long history of violating the human rights of its citizens. The campaign has spread to Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia, Cape Town and Johannesburg, and Sydney. London previously featured a mural by the polish artist Zbiok on the jailed Iranian cartoonist, Atena Farghadani, at the same Holywell Lane wall.

The New York campaign attracted significant media attention with articles in the New York Times and the Washington Post, as well the Associated Press, and television coverage on Al Jazeera America and a successful Facebook video by NowThis.

#NotACrime started in 2014 with an Education Is Not A Crime concert in Los Angeles in February 2015 and nearly 300 screenings of Bahari’s documentary film To Light a Candle about the persecution of Iranian Baha’is. The British-Iranian comedian Omid Djalili, Mark Ruffalo of The Avengers, Rainn Wilson of The Office, Nazanin Boniadi of Homeland, as well as the Nobel Peace Prize laureates and human rights activists Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Dr Shirin Ebadi, and a number of other writers and activists, joined the campaign by speaking out against the persecution of Iran’s Baha'is. And nearly 100 universities – including several in the United Kingdom, such as University College London and the University of Manchester – currently accept the BIHE certificate.

Dave the Chimp began painting more than 10 years ago and is influenced by skateboard culture and the urban landscape. His work can be identified by his positive messages and has appeared on the streets, in galleries and in publications across Europe.

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