[ RECENT WORK ]

From October 4th 2020 through February 14th 2021 agents Peter Miles Bergman and Heather Link-Bergman of The Institute of Sociometry (the organization we get the is from) were honored to be included in the exhibition Citizenship: A Practice of Society at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver with their installation Leftist Leaflets In Little Free Libraries.

Please enjoy this artist talk from 1/27/21 which covers LLiLL but also work from the preceding decade:

[ PHOTO FEED ]

#is getting more and more desensitized to picking

#is getting more and more desensitized to picking these up. Generally speaking I’m in no way a germaphobe and have had jobs cleaning bathrooms in hotels, a truck stop, and at a university campuses. For some reason these have felt even more gross than the unwelcome surprises found in bathrooms…
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Something about gum hygiene supersedes the abject nature of even piss or menstrual blood. (No wonder Dentists have the highest suicide rate by profession.) Or it could just be that with anything abject you need to just build up your exposure to lessen your disgust…
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Solimo® Mint Dental Flosser…
39°41’22.2”N 105°02’19.0”W…
3938 W Florida St.  Lakewood, CO 80209…
South shoulder of street…
Found: 7/21/2021 10:02 am...
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#art #conceptualart #artivism #pranktivist #artintervention #contemporaryart #litter #microplastics #environmentalart #environmentalist #abject #abjectart

#is sharing some Plackers in the wild sightings ou

#is coming off a dry spell of 15 days with no Plac

#is coming off a dry spell of 15 days with no Placker sightings with a twofer! This Oral-B, Scope® Floss Picks and the Solimo® Mint Dental Flosser on my other post were found an hour apart on the same bike ride to the Western suburbs…
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I’m collecting these for an exhibition - is FAIR 20202021 - this November, and was initially worried I wouldn’t have enough for a tri-fold display. In five weeks I’ve found 11. At this rate I should have ~ 42… 🤢
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Oral-B, Scope® Floss Pick…
39°43’57.7”N 105°11’57.1”W…
17400 W 10th Golden, CO 80401…
South shoulder of street…
Found: 7/21/2021 9:03 am…
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#art #conceptualart #artivism #pranktivist #artintervention #contemporaryart #litter #microplastics #environmentalart #environmentalist #abject #abjectart …
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@oralb …
@scope.mouthwash …

#is going to be delivering this info-bomb to @quim

#is going to be delivering this info-bomb to @quimbysbookstorenyc next week! If your in NYC Quimby’s in NY had been stocking our zines (and a bazillion other cool publications) since they first opened. We’re excited to be able to drop off a restock in person!
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#zine #zines #diy #diyordie #indiepress #smallpress #freedomofthepress #print #printsnotdead

#is going to be hand delivering the full catalog o

#is going to be hand delivering the full catalog of is PRESS zines for consideration to art publication ground zero @printedmatterinc in NYC next week…
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#zine #zines #diy #diyordie #indiepress #smallpress #freedomofthepress #print #printsnotdead

#is squeezing in some time between current project

#is squeezing in some time between current projects to still publish, print, and distribute zines!!!
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This mega pack, for the zine Mecca @quimbysbookstore in Chicago, has titles by (left to right): Season One & Two by @morrisonkristen, MisMerch’d 1 & 2 by is Director of Intelligence @heatherlinkbergman and Slave Nation and God In A Bottle by @frankkwiatkowski!!!
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Fresh zines common’ at you Chicago…
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#zine #zines #diy #diyordie #indiepress #smallpress #freedomofthepress #print #printsnotdead

#is (3/3) 7/19: I rolled up at six am to avoid a r

#is (3/3) 7/19: I rolled up at six am to avoid a run in with the Sheriff. I made my way quietly to the LiLLL. While I was installing the new sharps box, a voice behind me asked. “Hey, what’s up homey?” A young guy, lucid and clean, was standing on the other side of the fence in front of his tent
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“Hey, morning. Didn’t mean to get into your space”
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“It’s not my space, but thanks for saying that. What are you doing?”
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I heard you all had to be out of here on tomorrow”
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“Yea, they’ll be here at like four in the morning and put a fence around everything. That’s what they do now.”
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“Damn! Good luck with all that.”
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“Thanks homie.”
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I installed the box, added nine needle packs, the Grapes of Wrath, The Sun Also Rises, To Kill A Mockingbird, and Cat’s Cradle.
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7/20: By eight am the camp was 90% cleared. A perimeter fence was blocking both street entrances and the sidewalks.
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Sketch was trying to figure out how to fit one more bike frame into an overflowing cart full of bike parts.
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“Man mother fuckin’ Denver’s maids” he gestured dismissively at the cops across the street. “That’s what that asshole told me, ‘I’m just Denver’s Maid,’ I was like don’t even try that man. ‘When I die I’m crossing over but you’ll fall short!’ That’s what I told him, ‘You will not thread the eye of the needle.’”
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“Yeah, cops always try that ‘I’m just enforcing the law’ bullshit, right up until the point they shoot you...”
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“In the back.”, Sketch finished my sentence. “Hey, how you doing by the way?” he asked and reached out his hand for the customary fist bump.
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7/22: All the fencing came down yesterday, including the old fence around the asphalt lot. The 4th St. camp, where many of the Boom Town residents moved to, was also swept yesterday. A lone RV with no right front wheel was parked against the curb. The third resettlement had begun.
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The LLiLL, unrestricted by tents or a fence, still had all it’s books still but none of the needles. I added another 11 needle packs and carefully closed the door.
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#art #conceptualart #urbanart #streetart #interventionart #culturejamming #bannedbooks #literature #homeless #littlefreelibrary #needleexchange

#is (2/3) 7/14: Boom Town’s two giant trash pile

#is (2/3) 7/14: Boom Town’s two giant trash piles had been bulldozed and the LLiLL was picked clean. The now empty needle jar was still there. All the books and the dirty needle box were gone.
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I headed home, ordered a new lock box, grabbed A Brave New World and Clockwork Orange, and one needle pack.
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I locked my bike and walked through Boom Town. A clean guy with a pink shirt gave me a hard stare when I ducked through a whole in the fence. I gave him a “what’s up” nod, restocked, and skedaddled. He continued watching me with wary curiosity.
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I introduced myself to a resident named Richard and asked, “Did they come through and clean up all that stuff?” I asked gesturing to the missing trash. “But left you all alone?”
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“Yea. The cops told us to clear out in four days. Man, they’re just playing checkers! We’ll just go somewhere else. I mean, they can’t kill us... YET!?”
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As I unlocked my bike, a guy with a bald head, black LOCS sunglasses, button up, and chinos rolled up on a cheap mountain bike. He veered my way, aggressively questioning me in an unintelligible pigeon of Spanglish and drug jargon.
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“I’m good. Thank you.” I said holding out my hands palms hands up.
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He paused a second, giving me a hard stare behind the LOCS. In clear direct language he said, “Don’t be fucking around here, ese!”
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The warning was ambiguous but unmistakable. I looked directly at him and said, “Got it. I understand.” He u-turned and headed back into the neighborhood.
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I’d just met the sheriff of Boom Town – and he wears a black hat...
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To buy drugs in Boom Town you’d put in your order with a salesman who’d send it up the chain on a burner phone. My guess is pink shirt. The drugs would be delivered in a few minutes by someone else, maybe the Sheriff. Since I was stocking the LLiLL with needles but not buying drugs, I was breaking the code. You either do the drugs, or you pretend the drugs don’t exist.
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The menace from the Sheriff was palpable. I’d heed the warning and keep future activities incognito.
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#art #conceptualart #urbanart #streetart #interventionart #culturejamming #bannedbooks #homeless #littlefreelibrary #needleexchange

#is (1/3) 7/12: Walking up to Boom Town I noticed

#is (1/3) 7/12: Walking up to Boom Town I noticed a body laying in the dirt. A woman was twitching and crying snuggled up with a faux fur coat and a toy crossbow. Afraid she’d OD’d I asked clearly “Are you OK? Do you need an ambulance?” – clearly a preposterous question. I don’t call 911 unless it’s life or death since cops always show up with the ambulance and make a bunch of trouble (or just shoot someone.)
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I tell someone in a tent, “Hey man, there’s a woman laying in the dirt over there twitching.” The man in the tent yelled out to someone across the way, who sprang into action. The camp has its own medic.
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I ducked through the fence and stepped over a used needle in my sandals (gotta remember to wear close toed shoes around here). The copy of 1984 was pulled out and George Orwell’s face was peering out of the LLiLL. All the books were still there. Only one needle pack was left. I slipped in a copy of Slaughterhouse 5 and restocked the needles.
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I could hear, just behind. “Hey what the fuck is this guy doing, he’s taking pictures and putting needles in that thing.” I turned around to see a young gaunt shirtless guy.
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“Hey, I’m just putting more needles in here. They’re clean sealed needles for people to use. Not saying anyone needs to use them, but if they do. And some books, too.”
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“What are you taking pictures of?”
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“Just this. I’m not taking any pictures of people or anything. Sometimes tents or trash.”
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Sketch and I talked for another fifteen minutes about the news taking pictures of the camp without permission, how people are looking to exploit them, and about our respective religious beliefs (he prays to the east – I’m a humanist.)
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“Ok, are we cool?” I asked.
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“Yea, we’d be cooler if you gave me money to buy drugs.” We both laughed, me more than he.
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On my way out, the camp medic had erected a tarp to shade the woman, he had some water he was trying to give her, and was talking but mostly listening to her wail…
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#art #conceptualart #urbanart #streetart #interventionart #culturejamming #bannedbooks #literature #homeless #littlefreelibrary #needleexchange #drugaddiction

#is pretty pleased I was able to snag this Placker

#is pretty pleased I was able to snag this Placker. I initially saw it while crossing Alemeda at Broadway but wasn’t initially “in the mood”…
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I went back later after a rain storm but didn’t see it. Worried it had been washed away, I walked back and forth across this busy street three separate cycles of the walk signal scanning the crosswalk. Eventually I saw it about five feet further into the intersection. I waited for the safest period in the light cycle to run out and tag-and-bag this sparkly beauty without getting run over…
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This is a co-merchandised Placker: a “collab” between OralB and Scope. OralB and Scope are both owned by Proctor and Gamble…
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Oral-B, Scope® Floss Picks…
39°42’40.2”N 104°59’15.8”W…
300 S. Broadway  Denver, CO 80209…
Middle of N/S crosswalk…
Found: 7/6/2021 4:40 pm…
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#art #conceptualart #artivism #pranktivist #artintervention #contemporaryart #litter #microplastics #environmentalart #environmentalist #abject #abjectart

#is giving you two Plackers for the price of one!!

#is (unfortunately) becoming an expert in all the

#is wanting to thank everyone who’s had us print

#is wanting to thank everyone who’s had us print for them or bought a zine lately. Thanks to our pal @almightyandinsanebooks for the opportunity to letterpress print the covers on their Windy City Leisure zine / art book about the historic rise of athletic clubs in 19th and 20th century Chicago…
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And thanks to repeat customer Mita Saldana for ordering one of these gems!!!
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We have two more of these in stock. You can grab one on our store or use the buy it now $20 zine link on our link.tree…
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Appreciate ya’ll!!!
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#zine #zines #artbook #artbooks #diy #diyordie #indiepress #smallprsss #printsnotdead #letterpress #letterpressprint #chicago

#is all stocked up over at @kilgorebooksdenver 📗📕📘with is PRESS zines by yours truly (Peter Miles Bergman), @heatherlinkbergman, @frankkwiatkowski, Adan De La Garza, and @morrisonkristen!!!
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Want one of our zines? Support an independent bookstore and buy it from Kilgore…
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We 🖤 doing wholesale with bookstores and distributors. Hit us up if you want to bulk buy some mind bending zines…
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#zine #zines #diy #diyordie #indiepress #smallpress #printsnotdead #independentbookstore #indiebookstore #indiebooks #indiebook

#is putting zine orders together. These two copies

#is putting zine orders together. These two copies of Issue 1 and Issue 2, insane mashups of Seinfeld and Twin Peaks by Denver designer @morrisonkristen are off to a new home…
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These are $10 each or $20 for the set. You can skip the store and use the “buy it now” link on our link.tree - just remember to include your address!!!
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#zine #zines #mail #diy #diyordie #indiepress #smallpress #printsnotdead #seinfeld #twinpeaks #damngoodcoffee

#is 3/3 ~ This post depicts the “representation” and site activation phase of LLiLL IV, the fourth intervention of Leftist Leaflets in Little Libraries series. See the previous 1/3 and 2/3 post for background on the “observation” and “synthesis” phases. Though this completes the initial three phases of this project it also reignites a new observation phase of the intervention itself.
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The representation phase of an artwork involves taking all the cultural and symbolic cues and themes determined in the synthesis phase (and based on the observation phase) and attempts to make a mark, or alteration, or activation that is imbued with socio-cultural, political, and conceptual meaning. This can be true for a work of intervention art such as this, or for a landscape painting…
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On 7/9/21 the 900 W. block of Bayaud in Denver Colorado - a banned encampment of unhoused people known as Boom Town - was gifted a “Little Free Library” purchased from and registered on the associated nonprofit’s website littlefreelibrary.org…
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This Little Free Library was bolted onto an armature behind a chain link fence next to a Private Property sign also reading “distribution of literature … is strictly prohibited.” It is stocked with books from the American Library Association’s list of banned classics. All of the books enclosed have at some point been banned; The Jungle, Lolita, Native Son, An American Tragedy, 1984, Call of the Wild, Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies…
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In addition to historically banned books for banned campers, this Little Free Library seeks to honor the take-one-leave-one ethos of Little Free Libraries and serve its community by providing clean, sealed, 23 gauge hypodermic needles. There is a locked, “key-drop” metal box marked “dirty needles” for disposal of sharps, in an effort to reduce transmission of blood borne diseases like HIV and Hep-C among IV drug users living in Boom Town…
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#art #conceptualart #urbanart #streetart #interventionart #artintervention #culturejamming bannedbooks #tresspassing #literature #homeless #homelessness #littlefreelibrary #LFL #littlefreelibraries #littlefreelibrariesofinstagram #needleexchange

#is 2/3 ~ This post discusses the second “synthe

#is 2/3 ~ This post discusses the second “synthesis” part of LLiLL IV, the fourth instillation of Leftist Leaflets in Little Libraries. See the previous 1/3 post for background and the “observation” phase…
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This is Boom Town on 7/9/2021, the day I installed a Little Free Library on the site…
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The synthesis phase of any long term, observation or research based art involves pulling together various threads of meaning and symbolism to determine how to engage with the landscape or situation in an effort to depict it imbued with conceptual meaning. The dominant themes emerging in several years of observing this site are: the unhoused, “banned” camping/people, public health, substance abuse and addiction, trespassing, gentrification, development, and due to the “no distribution of literature” sign that set off an interest in this block, the role of books and literature in society.
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#art #conceptualart #urbanart #streetart #interventionart #artintervention #culturejamming bannedbooks #tresspassing #literature #homeless #homelessness #littlefreelibrary #LFL #littlefreelibraries #littlefreelibrariesofinstagram #needleexchange #hypodermicneedle

#is 1/3: LLiLL IV – this is the fourth iteration o

#is 1/3: LLiLL IV - this is the fourth iteration of Leftist Leaflets in Little Libraries…
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Over the years I’ve determined that most art that engages with the word - from representational painting to my own conceptual urban art - can be delineated into three phases: observation, synthesis, and representation. This image set represents the observation, or “process” phase of LLiLL IV…
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About four years ago I noticed this private property sign - absurdly prohibiting “distribution of literature” - at the edge of a featureless triangular asphalt lot bordered by two busy thoroughfares, a city-block-sized warehouse, and BNSF freight tracks…
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In Fall of 2020, the lot was fenced in…
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After the fencing went up, and in the midst of the 2020 pandemic, people started camping against the fence in defiance of Denver’s legally dubious (but still enforced pending appeal) urban camping ban. More tents would pop up every day and we started referring to this block as Boom Town. Boom Town’s detritus would spill onto the street, creating some pretty apparent public health issues…
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In Winter of 2021, zoning change notices went up on the fence and the adjacent warehouse. Like so much of Denver’s interior industrial space over the last decade this block and a half was going to be turned into mixed use overpriced adult dorms…
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Soon after, the sweep notices went up. On April 6th 2021 Boom Town was bulldozed. All the tents, collected possessions, and winter survival gear of the camp’s inhabitants were indiscriminately landfilled…
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As is inevitable, the cycle began anew. Boom Town was resettled by the end of April. By summer it’s population swelled into the street…
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In late June of 2021, as Boom Town bustled and hustled, Denver’s sycophant-for-developers Mayor Michael Hancock announced that the sweeps, which had ostensibly been on hold over the pandemic, we’re going to resume with gusto - despite having been declared unconstitutional by the Colorado State Supreme Court…
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#art #conceptualart #urbanart #streetart #bannedbooks #tresspassing #literature #homeless #homelessness #littlefreelibrary #LFL #littlefreelibraries #littlefreelibrariesofinstagram

#is truly disturbed with how many discarded Placke

#is truly disturbed with how many discarded Plackers I’ve found in a week just going about my business…
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I’m developing a theory the Plackers are simultaneously symbolic of the apex AND downfall of civilization…
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Walgreens Flossups® Mint…
39°44’24.2”N 104°56’41.9”W…
3600 E. Colfax…
Denver, CO 80206…
Sidewalk in front of liquor store…
Found: 6/26/2021 10:14 pm…
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#art #conceptualart #artivism #pranktivist #artintervention #contemporaryart #litter #microplastics #environmentalart #environmentalist #abject #abjectart

#is now taking Placker submissions through the mai

#is now taking Placker submissions through the mail! Just photograph the Placker straight on, foreshortened, note the address or location, PICK IT UP WITH YOUR HANDS, DM us the pics, and mail the Placker to PO Box 9542, Denver, CO 80209…
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Solimo® Mint Dental Flosser…
39°45’35.0”N 105°00’16.4”W7455…
1850 Platte St…
Denver, CO 80202…
Entrance to bike path…
Found: 6/24/2021 10:42 am…
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#art #conceptualart #artivism #pranktivist #artintervention #contemporaryart #litter #microplastics #environmentalart #environmentalist #abject #abjectart

#is bringing you more of that Plackers content you

#is bringing you more of that Plackers content you love so much!!!
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Plackers MicroMint® Flosser…
39°42’44.7”N 104°59’16.1”W…
241 S Broadway…
Denver, CO 80209…
Sidewalk south of Post Office…
Found: 6/22/2021 8:22 am…
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Plackers (and competing brands) found in the wild. Photographed, tagged, and bagged…
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#art #conceptualart #artivism #pranktivist #artintervention #contemporaryart #litter #microplastics #environmentalart #environmentalist #abject #abjectart