Waterstones Liverpool Presents Led By Donkeys

Waterstones Liverpool are chuffed to bits to welcome three of the founding members of Led By Donkeys - Oliver Knowles, Ben Stewart and James Sadri - who join us to discuss their incredible book Led By Donkeys - Adventures in Art, Activism and Accountability.

From being chased out of a luxury yacht club after rebranding Baroness Michelle Mone’s sailing boat, to turning the road outside the Russian embassy into the world’s biggest Ukrainian flag, to breaking the law to create a people-led memorial to those lost to Covid, Led By Donkeys takes the reader on an adrenalised journey into art, activism and accountability.

The book tracks the major moments from 2019 to 2024 when the guerilla political accountability collective Led By Donkeys’ activism captured the public mood with high-profile interventions. Taken chronologically, the book covers (amongst other things); the Covid crisis of 2020; Boris Johnson’s battles with truth and decency; Liz Truss’s battles with maths and markets; the climate crisis we are sleepwalking into; burgeoning corruption in Westminster; the war in Ukraine; a crashed economy; the cost of living crisis and much more.

Over 200 images are accompanied by punchy texts that tell the stories behind their public acts and take the reader behind the scenes while exploring the design process adopted by the collective through their adventures in installation. The photographs that sit at the centre of this book are shot from helicopters and drones, from iPhones and hidden cameras, behind-the-scenes; they include images from footage seized then returned by the police, and shots from the work of some of Britain’s best photographers. Added to this are contextual documents – the maps, plans and sketches that form the planning backdrop to the events as well as the outcomes – newspaper front pages, media response and public reaction. Taken together they tell the story of an extraordinary time and tactics to hold the powerful to account.
Oliver, Ben and James will show a few short film clips and talk us through the processes behind creating some of the most powerful and memorable interventions of the past few years.

Host or Publisher Waterstones