Kalle Lasn ([ˈkɑlˑɛ ˈlɑsn̥]) (born March 24, 1942) is an Estonian-Canadian film maker, author, magazine editor and activist. Near the end of World War II his family fled Estonia and Lasn spent some time in a German refugee camp. At age seven he was resettled in Australia with his family, where he grew up and remained until the late 1960s, attending school in Canberra. In the late 1960s, he founded a market research company in Tokyo, and in 1970, moved to Vancouver, Canada. For twenty years, he produced documentaries for PBS and Canada’s National Film Board. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

He is the co-founder of Adbusters magazine and author of the books Culture Jam and Design Anarchy and is the co-founder of the Adbusters Media Foundation, which owns the magazine. He reportedly started Adbusters after an epiphany that there was something profoundly wrong with consumerism. It happened in a supermarket parking lot. Frustrated that he had to insert a quarter to use a shopping cart, he jammed a bent coin in so that the machine became inoperable. This act of vandalism was his first (quite literal) "culture jam"—defined as an act designed to subvert mainstream society.

Biography

Vers la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, sa famille fuit l'Estonie et Lasn passe son enfance dans un camp de réfugiés en Allemagne, avant de s'installer en Australie.

Durant les années 1960, il fonde une entreprise d'étude de marché à Tokyo, puis s'installe à Vancouver au cours de la décennie suivante. Durant 20 ans, il produit des documentaires pour PBS et l'Office national du film du Canada. En 1989, il fonde le magazine Adbuster et la fondation homonyme, et publie des ouvrages comme Culture Jam et Design Anarchy, qui défendent des points de vue subversifs et opposés à la société de consommation.