Of Direct Action considered as one of the Fine Arts
Co-ordinated by Jordi Claramonte (Fiambrera Obrera)
The workshop will serve to open up a site of exchange and discussion, of a sharing of works. But fundamentally it will be made up of working groups that will develop projects and campaigns in the medium term. The international guests have already started, in fact, to work with local social movements and political agents, and in the majority of cases the working groups are already operative. In this way we hope that all the theoretical discussions and presentations will have a direct, immediate involvement with the concretion of the projects.
Programme
Fisrt session
Global direct action networks
With Sonja Brünzels, Luther Blisset and a.f.r.i.k.a. gruppe, John Jordan of Reclaim the Streets and Operation Tambor.
Second session
Spekulation
With Marcelo Expósito, Paloma Blanco, Jesús Carrillo, Fiambrera Obrera and the Colla Diables Casc Antic.
Third session
Frontiers
With Florian Schneider, Alain Kessi and Rick Ammersvoort, of the campaign Kein Mensch ist Illegal (No-one is illegal) and Papers for All.
Fourth session
Unemployment
With Gerard Paris-Clavel and Brian Holmes of Ne Pas Plier, APEIS (Association pour l'emploi, l'information et la solidarité des chômeurs et des précaires), Asambleas de Parados de Barcelona, AREBA (Asociación por la Renta Básica).
Fifth session
Indy Media - Medios independientes
With Raymond Thomas and Frank Guerrero of RtMark, Javier Ruiz and Rachel Whyte-Macpherson of Independent Media Centre (London), MRG (Movimiento de Resistencia Global - press committee).
Participants
a.f.r.i.k.a. gruppe is a collective of German activists who have developed the concept of the "communications guerrilla". The group is a paradigm of how to articulate a rigorous body of theoretical work with a political and artistic practice of the first importance.
Reclaim the Streets. A non-organization based in the UK, which runs the biggest and best-organized raves and political protests in Europe.
Fiambrera Obrera. (Spain). A group that has worked in Lavapiés (Madrid) and La Alameda (Sevilla) to oppose property spekulation, forming part of and reinforcing local networks of political action.
Kein Mensch ist Illegal. (Germany). The name designates both a campaign and, to a certain extent, a group of artists and a way of working in the struggle for immigrants' rights and against frontiers.
Ne pas plier. A French group that pools the efforts of graphic artists, photographers and so on in order to support assemblies of the unemployed, people without papers and other social movements.
RtMark. A North American group that takes advantage of corporations' right to sabotage, denounce and sue other corporations: the "Barbie liberation front" and the interventions in videogames or "educational programmes" are among their best-known actions.
Indy Media Centre-UK. The concept of the Indy Media Centre se has visto reforzed on the basis of the protests against global capitalism in London, Seatlle, Washington. The Centre combines the work of a news agency with the whole issue of open access to the communications media.
Also taking part are a further thirty or so organizations from Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia and Seville, including Residents' Asociations, Ecology Groups, Assemblies of the Unemployed, Squatters' Social Centres, Counter-information Groups, Immigrant Groups, etc. The objective is to set up stable working groups with the capacity to give real continuity and diffusion to the work done in the workshop.