No Fracking

Some projects choose you. The anti-fracking campaign was one of them.

My name is Gabriela but most friends call me Ary. Long before I founded Oaza Advertising, I was already doing what I love most: using creativity as a tool for things that matter. In 2012, hydraulic fracking was on the verge of being approved in Romania and the subject was being systematically silenced by mainstream media. I joined the international anti-fracking movement driven by a deeply personal conviction: that water, nature and the land we live on are not negotiable.

With no budget and no institutional backing and while holding a full-time corporate job, I developed a creative activism campaign from scratch. Working nights, weekends and every spare hour for six months. The concept was simple and powerful: artists photographed holding hand-painted signs with anti-fracking messages, sharing them directly on their own pages and bypassing the media blackout entirely.

The signs were hand-made by me together with Cosmina Ivanov, Fine Arts & Design graduate. The digital versions, taken to print, were designed by me. The photography sessions were carried out with the support of photographer Cosmin Bogdan.

Among the artists who joined the movement: Subcarpații, Travka, Norzeatic, Aria Urbană, DJ Vasile, El Negro, Luna Amară, Eyedrops, Petra Aker, Nightlosers, Les Elephants Bizarres, Blue Nipple Boy, STEMA, well known Romanian DJs and many others.

The campaign became the biggest activist online campaign in Romania with zero budget allocated. Its reach forced mainstream television to break the silence on the subject and ignited a mass resistance movement that achieved its goal three years later.

Result: No fracking in Romania.

Below you will find the campaign photography featuring the artists who joined the movement, alongside the digital versions of the signs.