Bank of the West wanted to stage an experiential activation to showcase their commitment to divest from planet-harming industries like tobacco, fracking, and palm oil, to name a few. Their campaign, “What on earth is your bank financing?” gave us an idea. What if we could visualize the idea of your money going into the bank and coming out as harmful pollutants? Most people don’t think about what their money is funding, but an image like this could drive the point home. And if we made it a big, colorful, cartoonish piece of pop art, surely it would be shared on social. And so it was.

Our ciggie machine was a big beast of a thing, sucking dollars in and spewing them out as microplastics found in cigarette filters (the number one killer of seabirds, by the way). We even added a smoking origami seagull, affectionately named Pedro, after our client.

And yes, if you’re wondering, we thought about the sustainability of building an installation like this, so we made it out of 100% recycled materials including the motor from a disco ball.