A BLADE OF GRASS MAGAZINE Other Ways to Govern

Co-Editor in Chief By Issue Guest Editor Laura Raicovich Prerana Reddy

Co-Editor in Chief When I joined my high school environmental from the texts that follow, which has also Kathryn McKinney club in the early 1990s, we made buttons that come into vividly high relief as the cracks in said “Think Globally. Act Locally.” As corny as governance reveal themselves in a moment Guest Editor it sounds, this concise directive is one that I of public health crisis, is that the pain and Laura Raicovich have been trying to live by ever since. Or at violence of the failures of such governance can Managing Editor least, I’ve been attempting to figure out what it also create much-needed space for other ways Sabrina Chin means to live in such a state, with my mind and of being and doing. my heart in both of these registers. In the midst Designer of a global pandemic, this formulation seems Casa Río founder Alejandro Meitin, interviewed Karina Muranaga at once imperative and an act of care. by Raquel de Anda, relays the work of a multidisciplinary group of artists, biologists, Addressing the question of how to live is one lawyers, and computer scientists, among way to reimagine the rules we create to govern others, who are working in a small town in human activity, whether they be collective, Argentina on researching the ecologically autonomous, democratic, anarcho-syndicalist, essential La Plata River Basin. The central idea Cover: The inauguration of the People’s Parliament or somewhere in-between the ragged edges is to use the logics of the wetlands themselves of Rojava in Dêrik. Photo by Ruben Hamelink, of these and many other possible ideological as a model for their own governance, which courtesy of Jonas Staal. directions. Even in the face of COVID-19, crosses many national borders from Argentina the rise of xenophobic nationalisms, state to Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil. Meitin says, violence against dissent, and the climate- “The vision of governance that we speak of is driven realities of potential human extinction, … the construction of a political muscle that there are infinite imaginings of other ways for is developed from a territorial perspective and CONNECT WITH US life and its governance to manifest. Consider what we define as the vocation of place.” artists’ experiments in this most practical aspect of society. What governance can do, at Marcus Briggs-Cloud tells the unfolding www.abladeofgrass.org what scale, and for and by whom, is at the core story of a quest to re-create the nearly-lost of asking, “How do we live?” Indigenous language of the Maskoke whose [email protected] ancestral lands are what is colonially named @ABladeofGrass In this issue of A Blade of Grass’ biannual Alabama and Georgia. He describes the magazine, artists from across a diversity organization of an eco-village called Ekvn- @ABladeofGrassOrg of geographies take on how we might live Yefolecv [ee-gun yee-full-lee-juh], a phrase otherwise, how we might rethink governance. in Maskoke with the double meaning of From Latin America’s La Plata River Basin, the “Returning to the Earth” and “Returning to our ancestral Maskoke lands, and Barcelona, to homelands.” Briggs-Cloud’s story so centrally Puerto Rico, New York City, Philadelphia, and positions the question of ‘How do we live?’ that the in-between of state-lessness, artists share Ekvn-Yefolecv seeks to create the specific living thinking and projects that perform a particular conditions that make the language possible. role: to broaden the capacity of the collective He writes, “In order to see a real reversal of imagination and reinvent governance beyond language loss, we have to altogether change Flags of unrecognized people and states the stale and undemocratic functions we see the way we live.” hang on the front of the KVS Royal Flemish enacted in state-houses and capitals across theater in Brussels where the New World the globe. The through-thread that emerges Summit – Brussels took place in 2014. Photo by Ernie Buts, courtesy of Jonas Staal. 1 Artist Jorge Díaz Ortiz tells of AgitArte, a Artist Li Sumpter shouts out a cross-section Center for the Urban Environment. Her approach to collective project based in Puerto Rico that has of projects that connect art, technology, and Contributors leadership is deeply informed by her artistic training created cooperative, self-governing, mutual- Afrofuturism as methods to revolutionize and experience making public art. aid structures in the face of natural disasters storytelling towards social transformation. RAQUEL DE ANDA is a curator, producer, and and government corruption. He speaks of Her examples range from The Colored Girls cultural organizer based in Brooklyn, NY. Born THOMAS GOKEY is a visual artist and an the necessity of cultural and solidarity work Museum in Philadelphia, which stakes out and raised on the U.S.-Mexico border, much of her organizer with the Debt Collective. when government structures fail, as they did space for the stories of Black and Brown women work approaches themes of duality, connection, in Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane María and girls, to Wangechi Mutu’s groundbreaking separation, inclusion, and the intersection of migrant LAURA HANNA is a filmmaker, media activist, and the multiple earthquakes last fall. He bronze sculptures installed on the façade of the rights with climate justice. and organizer. She helped launch Strike Debt’s says, “The fissures created after catastrophes Metropolitan Museum of Art in the fall of 2019. Rolling Jubilee initiative, produced The People’s in the management of emergencies by the MARCUS BRIGGS-CLOUD (Maskoke) is a Bailout Telethon at Le Poisson Rouge, and co- state, can create conditions for breaks in the Dutch artist Jonas Staal’s writings from 2014 language revitalizer, scholar, and musician. He is co- founded the Debt Collective, an economic justice hegemony of our colonial state and permit for “propose a necessary art of the stateless director of Ekvn-Yefolecv, an Indigenous ecovillage organization that advocates for the rights of debtors. new structures of governance and power.” The state—an art not subject to prehistoric cultural community in Weogufka, Alabama comprised work of these collective efforts joining together and political structures, but an art that is of Maskoke persons who have returned to their KATHRYN MCKINNEY is an arts administrator was made possible, therefore, by the very a driving, imaginative force redefining the ancestral homelands to practice linguistic, cultural, and communications strategist committed to conditions of crisis. space and practice of the commons.” Here he and ecological sustainability. He is a graduate of promoting the influence of artists upon global describes his work with assemblies of stateless Harvard Divinity School and a doctoral candidate culture. She earned a BA in Art History from Laura Hanna and Thomas Gokey, two founders peoples and those considered “terrorists” in interdisciplinary ecology at the University San Francisco State University and continues her of the Debt Collective, discuss how debt relief, (who are therefore denied state affiliation), of Florida where his work intersects liberation education at Baruch College’s Weissman School particularly student debt relief, traveled from which led to his work with the Rojava theology, linguistics, ecology, race, and gender of Arts and Sciences, pursuing an MA in Arts the assemblies of Occupy Wall Street to the Revolution, among other projects. It is in this identity. He received two Native American Music Administration. She has consulted for artist-led strategic debt purchasing and cancellation of text that Staal begins to articulate a form of award nominations for his Maskoke hymn album nonprofits and social justice organizations in New Strike Debt and the Rolling Jubilee, and now propaganda art that is centered on radical Pum Vculvke Vrakkuecetv (To Honor Our Elders) York and worked with clients and in-house for into national political agendas as they have mutual liberation. and served as composer and choir director for the international art businesses and institutions. Her been articulated by both Elizabeth Warren liturgical canonization of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha by writing has been published in San Francisco Art and Bernie Sanders. Hanna suggests that the From the physical and metaphorical territories Pope Benedict XVI. He is partnered to Tawna Little Quarterly and Art Practical. abolition of debt not only creates an economic explored in the articles that follow, a common (Maskoke) and they have two children, Nokos- impact, but also “end[s] a systemic harm thread is the space created by the eroding Afvnoke and Hemokke, with whom Marcus enjoys ALEJANDRO MEITIN is an artist, lawyer, social rather than simply cancelling out an action,” credibility of state governance. Artists are speaking exclusively in the Maskoke language. innovator, and founder of the art collective Ala which, importantly, is a reparative effort to responding by occupying this gap and Plástica (1991–2016) based in the city of La Plata, address the emotional and psychological reimagining governance in radical, equity- LAIA FORNÉ is an urban sociologist specializing Argentina. More recently, he founded Casa Río impacts of long-term debt. based ways. There is much to learn from in urban planning, democracy, and commons, and Power to do Lab, collaborating with youth, farmers, these culturally grounded, transdisciplinary has served as an advisor for public administrations, artists, activists, architects, landscape architects, Miguel Robles-Durán interviews Gala Pin efforts. As Staal writes, “Democracy may well including the Housing Department of Catalonia’s local authorities, and pollution control experts and Laia Forné, two expansive thinkers and have been made possible by state structures, government and the Area for Citizen Participation to create proposals regarding rivers and water activists who joined the En Comú Podem but in order to shape its core principles of of the Barcelona City Council. resources. government in Barcelona, and have firsthand egalitarianism—the equal distribution of experience of attempting a reinvention of power and knowledge—we must liberate it DEBORAH FISHER is a creative leader working to JORGE DÍAZ ORTIZ co-founded AgitArte in public administration from the inside. Pin from the state, thus disentangling its power expand the roles artists, creativity, and culture play in 1997 and is an editor of the book When We Fight, and Forné share some of their work, including monopolies and oligarchies from the capitalist civic life. She is the founding Executive Director of A We Win! He is a puppeteer, popular educator, their participation in a new transnational doctrine.” Whether ignoring the state, refusing Blade of Grass. Fisher has served as an art, strategy, and bicultural organizer with over 25 years of governance project initiated with Robles-Durán, it, undermining it, or transforming it from the and philanthropy advisor to Shelley and Donald experience. He is deeply committed to working renowned Marxist economic geographer David inside, there is no doubt that reevaluating and Rubin, and has worked in many capacities at the class struggles against oppressive systems, namely Harvey, and a cohort of individuals from around reinventing the way we live and how we govern intersection of art and civic life in New York City, colonialism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and the globe (including me) to facilitate bottom- ourselves constitutes a contemporary urgency, including as a studio manager at Socrates Sculpture capitalism. Jorge is also a founding member of Papel up, grassroots initiatives in urban zones. and art is mapping the potential. Park, and as a curriculum developer for the Brooklyn Machete, a collective of radical artists and street

2 3 theater/puppetry workers dedicated to education, JONAS STAAL is a visual artist whose work agitation, and solidarity work in 21st century Puerto deals with the relation between art, propaganda, Support artists Rico and its diaspora. He received his BA in Mass and democracy. He is the founder of the artistic Communication from Emerson College in Boston, and political organization New World Summit Massachusetts. Jorge strives to be a rigorous, (2012–ongoing) and the campaign New Unions organic intellectual and is based in his hometown (2016–ongoing). Recent exhibition-projects include enacting social change of Santurce, Puerto Rico. He and Papel Machete Art of the Stateless State (Moderna Galerija, are 2020 A Blade of Grass Fellows for Socially Ljubljana, 2015), After Europe (State of Concept, Engaged Art. Athens, 2016), The Scottish-European Parliament (CCA, Glasgow, 2018) and Museum as Parliament GALA PIN is a former councilor in the first (with the Democratic Federation of North Syria, A Blade of Grass and its Fellowship Donate today at: www.abladeofgrass.org/donate legislature of Barcelona en Comú where she was Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2018-ongoing). for Socially Engaged Art rely on the in charge of citizen participation and the district of His projects have been exhibited widely at venues For more information contact Ciutat Vella. She has participated in various struggles such as the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and generous support of people like you Vicki Capote for the right to the city, is a defender of rights and Moderna Museet in Stockholm, as well as the 7th investing in the revolutionary social Development Manager freedom in the digital era, and participated in active Berlin Biennial (2012), the 31st São Paulo Biennale justice potential of art. [email protected] promotion of 15M in the Spanish State. (2014), The Oslo Architecture Triennale (2016), and 646.944.9914 the Warsaw Biennale (2019). His most recent book LAURA RAICOVICH is a writer, curator, and is Propaganda Art in the 21st Century (The MIT Your help makes this work possible! Learn about our Fellowship and art worker who is focused on the intersections of Press, 2019). Staal completed his PhD research on explore our short documentary art and life. She is currently the Interim Director propaganda art at the PhDArts program of Leiden films, articles, and interviews at: of the Leslie Lohman Museum and is writing a University, the Netherlands. www.abladeofgrass.org book about museums, cultural institutions, and the myth of neutrality (Verso, 2021). In 2019, she was LI SUMPTER, PhD is a scholar and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow at the Bellagio multidisciplinary artist who applies worldbuilding Center and recipient of the inaugural Emily H. strategies and mythic design toward building Tremaine Journalism Fellowship for Curators at better, more resilient communities of the future. Hyperallergic. She formerly served as President Her work explores the anatomy and aesthetics of and Executive Director of the Queens Museum apocalypse focusing on feminine archetypes in End where she oversaw a vital commons for art, ideas, Time and afrofuturist narratives. Li’s collaborative and social engagement. Raicovich also inaugurated design initiatives engage the art of survival and Creative Time’s Global Initiatives, launching the sustainability through diverse ecologies and creative artist-driven media project, Creative Time Reports, problem-solving. Li recently completed artist and and directing the Creative Time Summit, an annual writer residencies with Haverford College’s Urban art and social justice conference. She worked for a Ecology Arts Exchange (2018), Leeway x NextFab decade at Dia Art Foundation and has held positions Art and Technology Residency (2019) and SWIM at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Public Art PONY’s Trail Off land-based project (2019/2020). Fund, and New York City’s Department of Parks She’s a three time recipient of the Leeway Art and Recreation. She also lectures and organizes and Change Grant and was awarded support from programs and projects internationally. Sundance, Knight, and Puffin Foundations for her transmedia project Graffiti in the Grass. Li is also MIGUEL ROBLES-DURÁN is a proponent of an educator and eco-arts activist working through the idea of the right to the city and co-founder of MythMedia Studios, the Escape Artist Initiative, Cohabitation Strategies, a nonprofit cooperative and various arts and community-based organizations for socio-spatial development. He is an Associate in Philly and across the country. Professor of Urbanism at The New School-Parsons A Blade of Grass Fellow jackie sumell builds a garden bed with students at Xavier University of Louisiana as part of Solitary Gardens, School of Design in New York City. a prison abolition project created with incarcerated individuals and communities across the country. Image courtesy of Rava Films. 4 5 CONTENTS

Organizing Mutual 62 Solidarity Projects as an Act of Resistance in Puerto Rico Jorge Díaz Ortiz

A Tale of Two Dojos: 32 Debt as Power: 74 Maps Not Manifestos 8 An Allegory About From Shame to Kathryn McKinney Institutional Integrity Possibility Deborah Fisher Thomas Gokey & Laura Hanna

16 One Sky: Meet the Progressive For Techno-Colored Spring/Summer 2020 48 Consultancy Cooperative 78 Girls Who Imagined Helping Barcelona Afrofutures When Black Miguel Robles-Durán, Gala Pin, History Wasn’t Enough Art of the Stateless State & Laia Forné Li Sumpter 20 Jonas Staal

A River Basin as 56 Governance Lab Radical Re-settlement: Raquel de Anda 38 Walking the Talk on & Alejandro Meitin Indigeneity Marcus Briggs-Cloud A Tale of Deborah Fisher Executive Director A Blade of Grass Two Dojos An Allegory About

Aikido students gather in a circle to thank one Institutional Integrity another for training at the end of each class. Photo by Lorenzo Tijerina.

8 9 WE’RE LIVING IN A UNIQUE MOMENT, there federations or associations. These federations are so many grand stories of institutional add legitimacy and articulate things like the I think we’re disillusionment and decay in the air. This lineage or history of the art, and what you have is showing up in the arts as some museum to do to rise in rank. They also introduce a lot all learning boards becoming the target of activism, and an of drama and power struggle to a practice that escalation of the usual scarcity mindset that is incredibly idealistic—the goal of aikido is something really plagues art institutions—smaller institutions nothing less than to create total harmony. getting more desperate and closing, and the few better-resourced institutions expanding Perhaps it makes a lot of sense that in this basic about how into mega-institutions that increasingly serve time, when we’ve all been in institutional wealth, not people. I think we’re all learning shock about so many things, I’ve been to express and something really basic about how to express remaking my relationship to aikido at the and wield power with integrity. And if you’re institutional level. Until recently, I trained at like me, it’s possible that all this learning this dojo that is internationally famous. My wield power with about institutional power might be showing old sensei studied directly with the founder up in your personal life, your hobbies or and came to New York in the 1960’s upon the integrity. relationships, in ways that mirror these larger founder’s death to continue spreading aikido. institutional lessons in helpful ways. Ultimately he created a national federation of aikido dojos all over the United States that Institutions are just people working keeps a direct relationship to the founder’s together toward a shared goal. Institutional dojo in Tokyo. I certainly enjoyed the reach relationships, at every level, are about and reputation of my old sensei during the reconciling collective ideals and stories to decade I was a member of his dojo. When I said personal identity and action. Right now, the I was from this dojo, people were impressed. ideals and stories do not match the actions This made me more confident, like more of a An aikido student folds a gi, of individuals—particularly those of us who force on the mat. Being a member of this dojo the uniform worn while training. have power. This discrepancy makes our made me feel like a badass! Unfortunately, this Photo by Lorenzo Tijerina. institutions feel hollow and shaky. But instead badass feeling did little to sustain and deepen of asking how to build an institution that is my actual practice or make me feel welcome solid, I want to ask something more like “what in my old dojo. I endured occasional, mild types of institutional practice have integrity?” sexual harassment and didn’t feel pushed or This is important because we’re learning that mentored—it was clear that I was good for a Ultimately, I left and joined a new dojo, in this new dojo, we train harder instead of institutional forms have no inherent power. It’s woman and therefore was not worth further and that was hard. Being disillusioned calling ourselves badasses. Or getting used to our actions within and in the name of these investment. My training kind of stalled out, enough to leave was easy. I think profound a sensei who is more interested in developing forms that matters. which is a bad sign—training is something disillusionment is the gift of this moment. But each member than building and consolidating you should ideally be deepening and letting disentangling myself from my identity as a institutional authority. When I’m not running A Blade of Grass, I am transform you for the rest of your life. My old member, or the myth that I was already at the a pretty serious student of aikido, a Japanese sensei was rarely there teaching. The dojo, best dojo, took forever. This process of creating I think this is a slow process because I didn’t martial art. Through regular aikido practice, technically a nonprofit, needed more and a new institutional relationship was an active want to trust any institution after devoting anybody can learn to conduct themselves more money, but it wasn’t clear why.1 It’s not process of reconciling my identity and actions myself to an institution that didn’t have with more power, but also more awareness just that the old dojo stopped living up to its to a new set of collective ideals and stories. For integrity. But it’s interesting, and very much of that power and its effect on others. Aikido myth or reputation. I started to feel like I was about a year I have been in an uncomfortable of this moment, that I got a lot of extra help happens in an “art world” of sorts. I train in tolerating things in the dojo that I would never transition, a bardo period of sorts, in which with the part where the old institution had to a dojo, a hierarchical institutional structure, tolerate in any other part of my life. the old institution has been dying inside die. After I sustained enough disillusionment and most dojos plug into a network of larger me and the new institution has been slowly to leave, a group of highly ranked women who coming to life as I accept fundamental shifts, train at dojos affiliated with my old sensei 1. Not suggesting foul play, just a level of opacity that I feel is inappropriate for any nonprofit like being open to a new style. Or the fact that from all over the country circulated a very

10 A TALE OF TWO DOJOS A TALE OF TWO DOJOS 11 polite petition that was grounded in their love of aikido and concerns about its future. It’s a sacred space that positions They asked for support of specific initiatives that would increase gender representation martial arts training as a dangerous and equity, such as including a woman on the national technical committee. I signed it immediately, and I have to admit that it place for our egos and a safe space momentarily gave me hope that I could go back to my old life and quit this humbling and for our spirits. arduous transition process. But the petition was received as a personal attack: my old sensei didn’t display good leadership and intimidated a bunch of people into removing their signatures. Some I considered friends in this old dojo became really tribal about protecting their leader instead of listening to their friends’ and longtime training partners’ reasonable concerns and productive suggestions about how to make aikido and the federation better. A friend of mine who had been training at this dojo for almost 40 years was banished, not just at my old dojo but at any affiliated dojo, just for signing and circulating the petition. Any lingering doubts I had about whether I belonged to the old dojo were effectively cauterized, and the half-in, half-out attitude I was bringing to the new dojo became easier for me to see.

The petition part of this story is all about right now because it’s another example of epic institutional betrayal. What makes this a story also about the future is that the new dojo does three things to engender my trust, which I think are a real way forward for all of us, in any institutional context. The new dojo is what it says it is; it’s operating with sufficiently high stakes; and the ideas it is built upon demand something of me—the dojo doesn’t work without my participation. It’s a sacred space that positions martial arts training as a dangerous place for our egos and a safe space for our spirits. You could see how such a statement would be an invitation to abuse, right? What makes it okay is not the form—all dojos are kingdoms, senseis can do whatever

Students of all ranks participate in the ritual of cleaning the dojo as a of cleaning in the ritual participate of all ranks Students one another and the towards and responsibility respect sign of mutual MacNintch. by Sean Photo institution. they want—but the way both my new sensei

12 A TALE OF TWO DOJOS A TALE OF TWO DOJOS 13 and the membership choose to enact it on a to be transformed. And we’ll hold one another of institutions that have such a huge gap daily basis. This consistent reconciliation of on that journey. If you’re scared on the mat, or between what they say and what they do, or words to actions is the fundamental building hurt, or crying in the dressing room because are operating with such low stakes for most block of any institutional practice, and it’s hard you were challenged too much, you can talk people that I better understand why they’re because it requires the leader to empower about it with Sensei, and count on the support struggling, and I don’t know if they have a others and notice when they are in the wrong. of every single person around you. I’ve trained way to grow. Even in whole sectors that feel What matters in my new dojo is not the lineage a long time and never been in a dojo like that. like they are dying, I also see so much life. A or reputation of my sensei, it’s the proposition This is important because the larger aikido rapidly growing institution like Laundromat he’s offering to a membership. He is saying, community is both aging and shrinking,2 Project isn’t reinventing the form of the arts “I will transform you by challenging your ego facing a relevance crisis that is similar to the nonprofit. Rather, it’s conducting its business and nurturing your spirit,” combined with a one arts institutions are facing. And I can’t with a much deeper and more consequential daily commitment to use his power in a way help but notice that it might be because arts relationship to its communities, including that makes that proposition reliably and institutions also love to consolidate power demanding greater accountability from itself demonstrably true. and cultural authority, and as many of its partners as it can. It’s not One way he achieves and trade on things like hollow because the people in it are not acting this is by sharing some Our institutions lineage, reputation, hollow. That deep sense of consequence, of of his power. Even a and personal power being implicated in a project or journey that leader with almost total that can’t be reliably is larger than yourself, is threatening because authority, like a sensei or feel hollow practiced by a we are so trained to avoid it. We certainly find an employer, can make community. it risky to create institutional experiences all kinds of decisions because for that have a deep sense of consequence. This to share that power. I don’t end this essay might be particularly true in the arts, where There’s a lot of listening. knowing how to reform a sense of low stakes or artificiality—the idea Everybody who trains is various reasons nonprofit boards in that it’s just art—are instrumental to our work, taken seriously. People the arts or with a clear and freedom from “reality” is often necessary are given important we are hollow sense of what a post- for breakthroughs. But maybe the future lies responsibilities, and democratic United in facing that problem. If we do, we can take are recognized for in them. States is going to look incremental steps toward articulating what their achievements. like. What I get is a precisely it is that art and art institutions do Are decisions around clearer sense that we that is truly of consequence, and then start wielding power 100% benevolent, or even can make strides toward the institutions we earnestly enlisting, rather than appeasing, accurate? No, that’s impossible to achieve. But want by changing our behavior, rather than artwashing, or entertaining the folks who are the decisions around the distribution of power architecting alternatives to the institutions already committed to helping us do the work. are good enough to create an environment themselves. Our institutions feel hollow that I am starting to feel safe having my ego because for various reasons we are hollow in challenged in. them. On one hand, this is pretty empowering! We always have the power to consider our I do think that this approach to power, own behavior and behave differently. On the particularly in the autocratic world of other, investing in institutional relationships martial arts, does a lot to create a vibrant, that are less hollow requires vulnerability growing, young dojo that I would bend over and might mean letting go of some pretty backwards to support. We all signed up for this powerful incentives. This helps me see the challenging proposition together—we’re here arts landscape differently. There are a lot

2. There are a lot of statistics in this 2017 Aikido Journal article (https://aikidojournal. com/2017/12/07/aikido-confronting-a-crisis/), the most relevant is a student to instructor ratio of 1.5:1. Aikido teachers are teaching a lot of their peers and not a lot of new folks.

14 A TALE OF TWO DOJOS A TALE OF TWO DOJOS 15 Spring/ Astrology is a lot like art: it uses craft and ideas that is unmediated by the Church beneath a standoff with Mars—the planet of anger, to make a coincidence meaningful. Planets Pluto-Saturn conjunction. And we’ll end the conflict, courage, and will. These conditions Summer don’t cause events to unfold down here on year with the Saturn-Jupiter conjunction on are perfect for texting old lovers, falling into 2020 Earth, nor are we making the planets move. December 21, 2020 in Aquarius. This is also a complicated romances, and all sorts of other Cause and effect explanations of astrology are regular cycle, and Saturn is still all about rules emotional risks—and the lessons are going silly! But there does seem to be a relationship and institutional authority. But Jupiter is the to be about how we fail others and get hurt between the planets and our lives that can planet of abundance, luck, ideas, leadership, ourselves. None of us should expect to be be exploited to tell stories. Because this and potential, and Aquarius signifies what we treated exactly the way we want and deserve relationship isn’t causal, the stories can be can collectively imagine and innovate. There’s to be. But this could be the summer in which about forces beyond our control. We all live hope! This moment could debut the new we learn just how resilient we are. This might under the same sky, so astrological stories structures, institutions, and authorities that be the key to building the world we want in tend to be about what we share and how we are destined to rise out of January’s wreckage. 2021 and beyond. are bound. And we were each born at a unique time and place that describes our personal But what about now, in this long, anxious relationship to this sky we share. moment between destruction and rebirth? That’s where we find ourselves, and we know This issue is about governance, and our stories the world doesn’t just end on one day in will focus on this too because there have been January, and simply rise anew eleven months about two years of intense planetary action on later without anybody putting in the effort the Cancer-Capricorn axis that are culminating to ensure it’s a world we actually want. Here this year. These two signs describe tensions in the U.S., the Saturn-Jupiter conjunction that by now feel like the air we breathe: the is just as likely to describe an authoritarian tribe versus the institution; whether you’re regime as it is to coincide with the end of the bound by blood or by laws; what you protect electoral college. What needs tending in this and heal on one hand, and are ambitiously critical regeneration phase? The astrology of building on the other. We certainly arrived spring and summer 2020 is telling us that the in 2020 nurturing the groups we belong to, focus will be on love and relationships, and whether we’re creating POC-centered spaces that makes sense. We have rightly focused on to heal systemic racism or consolidating power protecting ourselves and healing our wounds within the Republican party. And for all of us, as all the institutions crumbled around us. supporting our tribes feels like a reaction to But even though we were right, that focus on institutional betrayal and destruction. protecting our in-group cannot help but create an out-group, and that carries destructive One Sky The stars cannot say which side wins in this weight. Creating something new will require story, but we all seem to be working toward brave new relationships outside the tribe. something of consequence. This year is momentous astrologically; 2020 starts with This May and June, Venus will be retrograde in epic acts of creative destruction and ends with Gemini, the sign that symbolizes transmitting nothing less than the dawn of a new era. Pluto information, establishing connection. We’ll and Saturn conjoined in Capricorn on January have a sustained opportunity to connect 12, 2020. The planet of structure, rules, and across difference, take emotional risks, and authority lines up with the planet of creative reconsider how we show up in relationships. destruction, truth-finding, and power struggle While Gemini is a quick and easy sign, this regularly, and this cycle tends to accurately period of review will not be straightforward! predict institutional upheaval. To take one Venus will be in a conflict with Neptune, the example, Martin Luther started his quest to planet of romance, intoxication, confusion, put people in a direct relationship with god and addiction. This will be followed by another

16 17 Gemini Virgo Sagittarius Pisces You might have been processing a been processing might have You financial issues, or serious loss, family the last debt over a karmic repaying aside heaviness that Set of years. couple or yourself on loving focus and really attractiveness your deeply considering in confusion This might create others. to be But you’ll or public life. career your course, educational a journey, for ready in 2021 and awakening or spiritual beyond. up everything blown you You’ve knew art or thought you about your now and are practice, other creative your in truly loving invest to ready business Your or career. public persona might be overwhelmed partner or life this shift, by you’ll be but or confused up roll to ready December into walking an important sleeves and make your in 2021. body of work been doing a lot of hard You’ve or financial power reclaim to work and now self worth, your improve revisiting and to shifts the focus business long-term your reviewing cause This could partnerships. and life your home life, in or conflict confusion might these conflicts but ultimately communication. in better result plays power been navigating You’ve or friend group your that threaten work, the focus and now organizing relationships reviewingyour to shifts might find You or parents. family to the one bringing considerable you’re you to this! But if or conflict drama you role, your and own accept can assert transformative powerfully could of parts the darkest over leadership in 2021 and beyond. psyche your You’ve been facing disillusionment and been facing You’ve education of your reshaping radical to being asked now and are or beliefs, and resources your review carefully Your comfort. material your ensure this friends might not understand But by yourself! emphasis on loving need, you’re what you giving yourself career huge make up to yourself setting strides in 2021 and beyond. You’ve had years of structural overhauls overhauls of structural had years You’ve or work. Turn health, with employees, on desk and focus your from away friends, acquaintances, your loving This may deeply. more and community around grieving losses or conflict mean into be walking debts. But you’ll in the long reinvest to ready December most to that matter partnerships term future. building your an aspect of been rebuilding You’ve with relationship communication, your neighborhood. Thissiblings, or your with an might connect you summer, or otherwiseex a relationship review debts or repaying with an eye toward in loss. This might put you processing romance, wiser with another, conflict a have it impossible to or simply make process, time. But in this review good new that breathes something heal you’ll and foundations. family your into life confronting at work been hard You’ve perhaps dismantling shadows, your back. that hold you deeply held beliefs and romance find This summer you’ll with a or maybe a relationship fun, off light but becomes child, that starts sense on your a serious referendum this conflict Negotiating of self-worth. who you change might positively well are. think you Taurus Leo Scorpio Aquarius Your Sky Your Aries your restructuring been totally have You can so that you or public persona career the focus and now some power, reclaim relationship your to shift to is going up day showing you’re skills and how strong face to going You’re day. to the deepest, from most challenges But by psyche! of your parts repressed an emotional risk,setting you’re taking friends, admirers, gain up to yourself and lots of other connections. Cancer claiming at work been hard have You with limitations and dealing power relationships. committed in your the most hidden or on loving Focus this summer. of yourself parts secret the most on loving focus can If you be you’ll of you, parts inaccessible tap to ready December into walking old and heal resources shared into new. build something to wounds Libra been have structures family Your teardown-and- enduring an arduous might need to You process. rebuild home and escape from away get journey or a deeply a romantic into your that shifts connection spiritual daily routine Your about love. beliefs walking into you’ll be but will suffer, insight, a with new creative December with relationships new child or better children. Capricorn been dismantling and rebuilding You’ve very look or your your sense of self. loving deeply consider This summer, compassionate creating by yourself or health, habits, nourishing your need to of the things you care taking Not everybody’s ease. do with greater your this—communicating get to going be But you’ll needs will not be easy! your approach up to yourself setting power. worth with more or self finances

18 1919 Art of the Stateless State Jonas Staal

Reprinted with permission, this excerpted article originally appeared in ART PAPERS, May/June 2014, vol 38.03.

20 21 When I met Jonas Staal in 2013, his first iteration of the New World Summit had I. Christina Aguilera, Dinosaurs, Guards at Guantánamo moved al-Kahtani recently taken place. The summit brought together people from around the globe and Capitalist Democracy’s Mass between closed, darkened spaces; they deregulated his sleep patterns, disorienting who were labelled terrorists by one state or another due to political beliefs, social Torture and political affiliations, nomadic cultural conditions, or other unknown qualifying him and making it impossible for him to know acts. Staal’s idea was straightforward. The refusal of state acknowledgement when to pray and in which direction. Then On March 3, 2006, a leaked file documenting an they blasted him with Christina Aguilera’s 2002 created a special class of people whose embodied knowledge and methodologies interrogation at Guantánamo prison in Cuba hit “Dirrty.” Al-Kahtani was exposed to pinup could perhaps be productively shared if art could break down the barriers to was released via Time magazine’s website. girls and pornography, non-halal McDonald’s their assembly in public institutions in countries that have blacklisted them. The log contained a detailed report on one food, and strobe lights. All these are ostensible Importantly, such a gathering could yield the “imaginative force redefining the and a half months of the torture of Saudi products of a “liberated” Western culture, space and practice of the commons” so desperately missing from the state politics citizen Mohammed Mani Ahmed al-Kahtani, subverted in Guantánamo as tools of of the moment. the suspected 20th hijacker from the attacks oppression. on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in What follows is an excerpt from a “Field Report” that offers a view inside Staal’s September 2001.1 Personally approved by On January 10, 2003, at 22:45, al-Kahtani’s early thinking which has evolved into, among other initiatives, two particularly Donald Rumsfeld, the United States’ then interrogator allowed him the rare opportunity profound experiments. The first was a collaboration with the coalition of Kurdish, Secretary of Defense, the methods used to choose a topic to talk about. According Arab, and Assyrian peoples that brought about the Rojava Revolution, which were known as “enhanced interrogation to the log, the “[d]etainee wanted to talk has inspiringly created an autonomous region in Northern Syria, centering techniques,” and they included “extended about dinosaurs.” Al-Kahtani’s response women’s rights, equity, and religious freedom. The second was a more traditional sleep deprivation, forced standing (also known reaches back from a brutal present into a book project that contains a set of unconventional ideas titled Propaganda Art as stress positions), isolation, manipulation of prehistory untarnished by such evidence heat and cold, noise bombardment, personal of civilization as fast food, Playboy, and (MIT 2019). Among the attendees of the first summit were in the 21st Century humiliation, and mock execution.”2 The myth Christina Aguilera. This choice of topic was representatives from the Kurdish Women’s Movement. Their relationship with of the efficiency and acceptability of what had not naïve but radical, reaching far beyond the Staal subsequently deepened and led to an invitation in 2015 to design and build at the time been dubbed “torture lite” (sic) oppressive iconographic realm of his confines a public parliament building in Rojava that explicitly reflects the values of the has since been discredited; less attention, at Guantánamo. Rojava Revolution. It was completed in 2018. Staal’s book, parallel to many of however, has been given to the bizarre but the ideas embedded in the Rojava project, proposes the potential for propaganda systematic use of Western pop cultural output Yet the guards’ log bypasses Al-Kahtani’s art that is premised on mutual emancipation, rather than the consolidation as means of torture.3 escape from the terror of the present, noting of power into the hands of a few. The book grows from years of this work, including a desire to use art-driven assemblies to create “an independent network of references, histories, and symbols that define identity, even beyond what a territorially or legislatively defined state might ever be able to obtain” as a means of creating new transnational realities. The work of imagining possible alternative governance structures that would enable such transformation, as art and as politics, for Staal, is intrinsic to the thinking outlined below.

—Laura Raicovich

Fadile Yildirim (left) speaks on behalf of the Kurdish Women’s Movement at the New World Summit – Berlin in 2012. Photo by Lidia Previous: The inauguration of the People’s Parliament of Rojava in Rossner, courtesy of Dêrik. Photo by Ruben Hamelink, courtesy of Jonas Staal. Jonas Staal.

22 ART OF THE STATELESS STATE ART OF THE STATELESS STATE 23 only the following: “Interrogator gave history of dinosaurs and talked about the meteor Our task, as political artists, is that wiped them out, and equated this event with nuclear war. Detainee expresses great to liberate our media from that ignorance about dinosaurs and space, topics that are taught in U.S. grade schools.”4 The Guantánamo logic thus reduces veritable servitude, to work toward genuine meaning—given here in the simile, “nuclear war poses a threat to humans like that which a emancipation from the symbols that meteor may have posed to the dinosaurs”—to a matter of “true or false?” now legitimize torture and mass

The leaked interrogation logs furthermore The inauguration of the People’s Parliament cultural oppression. engage a disturbing understanding of the of Rojava in Dêrik. Photo by Ruben Hamelink, very culture from which their agents emerge: courtesy of Jonas Staal. if the everyday décor of consumer society is a bona fide instrument of torture, according to Guantánamo logic, then surely it must be “true” that we are currently undergoing permanent, mass cultural torture as subjects of what Alain Badiou has referred to as “capitalist democracy.”

Although “democracy” is a single word, we may observe its use across the political spectrum, employed in the name of such radically different operations as the “war on terror” under which al-Kahtani was tortured, and the massive social movements to have crossed the globe in the 21st century since Spain’s 15 million indignados began to occupy southern Europe. What is needed, then, is a vocabulary that allows us to differentiate between the language of emancipation and that of repression. II. Lenin in Japan

Vladimir Lenin goes to Japan. To speak to the masses there, he must use a translator. When he comes to his fundamental critique of what he considers to be a “bourgeois democracy,” the translator becomes confused. At this moment, it is clear to Lenin that in Japanese the word “democracy” (minshushugi) has yet to be formulated. It is best translated as an “-ism” (-shugi): democratism.

24 ART OF THE STATELESS STATE ART OF THE STATELESS STATE 25 In recent years I have worked with political parties, nonparliamentary political organizations, and social movements focused on exploring what role art might play once Researcher Jolle Demmers it is resituated within an alternative political chairs a session with Callum sphere, and how this political sphere might Clayton-Dixon (Aboriginal change once artists engage it. In my own Provisional Government, APG), practice, these endeavors have led to an Emory Douglas (Black Panther artistic and political organization called the Party, United States), Ilena New World Summit. Since 2012, the New World Saturay (National Democratic Movement of the Philippines), Summit has developed a series of “alternative Richard Bell (artist, Aboriginal parliaments” worldwide, providing a forum Tent Embassy), and Vivian for political and juridical representatives from Ziherl (Frontier Imaginaries) organizations that have been excluded from during the 2016 New World democracy, listed as terrorists, banned from Summit – Utrecht. Photo Simon P. Sapioper (Government of West-Papua) speaks at travel, and financially immobilized, with their by Nieuwe Beelden Makers, the New World Summit - Utrecht. Photo by Nieuwe Beelden assets frozen. The alternative parliaments courtesy of Jonas Staal. Makers, courtesy of Jonas Staal. of the New World Summit seek to situate art outside of what Sinclair described as its “extended prehistory” of political exclusion and oppression.

Subversion results from this translation; Upton Sinclair’s Mammonart (1924) seeks Our task, as political artists, is to liberate our These international gatherings have included “democracy”—the term—is broken, then to analyze the history of art as a history of media from that servitude, to work toward organizations that are internationally doubled up to produce another. Through what the ruling classes, beginning with a group genuine emancipation from the symbols considered to be state threats. In the European we might now label as a Deleuzian proposal, of cavemen who discover that when they that now legitimize torture and mass cultural Union, a committee called the Clearing House Lenin has spoken about what he knows best, dedicate art to the honor of their leader, they oppression. We are in need of an art after was formed following the September 11, 2001 in the language he knows the least—one in are rewarded with privileges and protection. democratism. attacks to draw up the blacklist. The Clearing which the democratic had yet to be formulated The history of art as something more than the House meets biannually in Brussels, but there in language, just as, elsewhere, it had yet to be narration of the dominant class has, according III. Toward an Art of the are no public proceedings or records of the put into actual practice. to Sinclair, yet to be written. On the extended Stateless State body’s selection process. Even by its own prehistory of art, he wrote: “The artists of our standards, the committee in charge of deeming Lenin adopts the term. In “Working-Class and time are like men hypnotized, repeating over which organizations are to be placed “outside” Bourgeois Democracy” (1905), he writes of a and over a dreary formula of futility. And I say: a. The New World Summit the ideals of democratism is organized in “Russian bourgeois democratism,” reflective Break this evil spell, young comrade; go out a fundamentally undemocratic manner.8 only of the interests “of the mass of tradesmen and meet the new dawning life, take your part The first act necessary to free art from its Consequences for listed organizations and and manufacturers, chiefly medium and small, in the battle, and put it into new art; do this complicity in the mass cultural torture of related individuals include blocked assets and as well as (and this is particularly important) service for a new public, which you yourself democratism is to rearticulate the political an international travel ban. those of the mass of proprietors and petty will make … that your creative gift shall not context in which we want art to be operational. proprietors among the peasantry.”5 Today, it is be content to make artworks, but shall at Making art in defense of fundamental The New World Summit attempts to explore this concept of democratism that philosopher the same time make a world; shall make new democracy—as opposed to democratism— at what level art can serve as a tool to Alain Badiou refers to as the “capitalo- souls, moved by a new ideal of fellowship, a means demand-ing of art that it not only bypass these restrictions. We have tried to parliamentarian order.”6 And the “liberated” new impulse of love, and faith—and not merely reflect a progressive, emancipatory politics, circumvent them by operating as a nomadic symbols of pop culture produced by the hope, but determination.”7 but also that it contribute to the shaping of its parliament: the New World Summit has no creative industry should be considered its art, ideals. That is, the art that is required is not fixed geographical location, as it represents and its preferred weapons of intellectual mass Sinclair may well have subscribed to Andrea simply a product of politics, but a political force no nation state. We make maximum use of torture. Fraser’s dictum: “We are all already serving.” in itself. the exceptional juridical status of art—that

26 ART OF THE STATELESS STATE ART OF THE STATELESS STATE 27 is, of the fact that art, today, is rarely simply “Democracy” may well have been made I propose a necessary art of the stateless present, but rather always simultaneously possible by state structures, but in order to questioning the conditions of this presence. shape its core principles of egalitarianism—the state—an art not subject to prehistoric This radical ambiguity, we believe, creates the equal distribution of power and knowledge— transformative space in which progressive we must liberate it from the state, thus cultural and political structures, but an art politics can take shape, free from the disentangling its power monopolies and restrictive legislative fallout of global anti- oligarchies from the capitalist doctrine. I that is a driving, imaginative force redefining terrorism initiatives. Where politics fails, and propose a necessary art of the stateless state— where democracy’s deep state reveals itself an art not subject to prehistoric cultural and the space and practice of the commons. at its most explicit, art operates to sustain an political structures, but an art that is a driving, alternative political sphere. imaginative force redefining the space and practice of the commons. The first of the three editions of the New World Summit to have taken place so far occurred b. The New World Academy May 4–5, 2012, in the Sophiensaele, a theater and space for cultural and political discourse In the context of the New World Summit, located in Berlin. Invitations were dispatched art acts as an imaginative space for a to roughly 100 organizations mentioned different political arena: the “alternative on one of the many international lists of parliament.” We founded the New World designated terrorist organizations. During this Academy in collaboration with BAK, Base for inaugural summit, we were able to host four Contemporary Art in Utrecht, the Netherlands, political and three juridical representatives—as in order to continue our exploration of art as a in lawyers—from the following organizations: force for political restructuring. The New World the National Democratic Front of the Academy is a school that invites stateless Philippines, a guerilla faction that, since the political groups dealing with systematic 1970s, has opposed what they consider to be political exclusion to work with artists, the country’s US puppet regime; the National scholars, and students over a period of three Liberation Movement of Azawad, a Tuareg-led days, during which participants investigate group of insurgents that took over two-thirds the various roles art might play at the center of of Mali in 2012, striving, in their words, for a political struggle, developing related projects “multi-ethnic” and “multi-religious” secular in collaboration with one another. Here, we state; the Basque Independence movement, seek to trace the historical narratives and which seeks to redefine the notion of Basque practices of stateless art. citizenship such that it might be applied to global struggles for self-determination; and the For instance, the New World Academy Kurdish Women’s Movement, which works in invited the refugee collective We Are Here—a opposition both to the Turkish State and to the group of 225 undocumented migrants who male dominant structure within the Kurdish organized themselves politically in 2012—to revolutionary movement. Fadile Yildirim, who teach at the school. We Are Here worked represented the KWM, proposed a radical with our participants to explore new models feminist reading of history in order to “liberate for cooperation between artists, students, democracy from the state.” In her words and refugees. Members of Pirate Parties Lenin’s “democratism” is echoed: for Yildirim, International were also invited to teach; it is the legalized structure within which the they developed a “Pirate School” called the Flags of unrecognized people and states hang on the front of the KVS Royal secondary status of women is inherently Alternative Learning Tank (ALT), in which Flemish theater in Brussels where the New World Summit – Brussels took place in 2014. Photo by Ernie Buts, courtesy of Jonas Staal. inscribed. teachers, students, and citizens were taught basic techniques of email encryption and

28 ART OF THE STATELESS STATE ART OF THE STATELESS STATE 29 anonymous Internet use. Both organizations inscribing it through words and images in the 1. Interrogation Log Detainee 063: www.time.com/ operate from a condition of statelessness, be it imagination of an unrecognized state. The time/2006/log/ log.pdf; see also Vincent W.J. van by choice, with the Pirate Parties, or by force, cultural worker uses artistic tools in order to Gerven Oei, Jonas Staal, US Army Torture Devices in the case of We Are Here; this condition, uphold and to communicate the narratives (Amsterdam: Gallery Masters, 2007), includes the we learned, nurtured models for political and convictions of the marginalized and the full, annotated log: www.jonasstaal.nl/empathy- organization and cultural practice capable dispossessed. He or she is educator, agitator, usarmytorture.pdf of opposing the democratist doctrine, by organizer, engaged in the maintenance of the necessity or by choice. symbolic universe of the unacknowledged 2. Jessica Wolfendale, “The Myth of Torture Lite,” state—not so much an administrative entity, Ethics and International Affairs, Volume 23.1, 2009, Teachers from the National Democratic but rather a collectivity, participant in a 47–48. Movement of the Philippines provided a shared visual language. As such, a kind of practical application of our theory of art in meta-state is created in details; it possesses an 3. Metin Basoglu, Maria Livanou, and Cvetana the stateless state. This organization consists independent network of references, histories, Crnobaric, ‘‘Torture vs Other Cruel, Inhuman, and of a variety of underground movements and and symbols that define identity, even beyond Degrading Treatment: Is the Distinction Real or semi-legally recognized political parties and what a territorially or legislatively defined state Apparent?’’ Archives of General Psychiatry 64, 2007. factions, all of which share a strong leftist, might ever be able to obtain.10 Maoist signature. Together with Movement 4. Vincent Van Gerven Oei, Jonas Staal, US Army representatives, our participants developed It is within this stateless state that we find Torture Devices (Amsterdam: Gallery Masters, a new model for “people’s trials”—a trial the condition that may be understood as a 2008), 45. format intended to allow a civilian base to “permanent revolution”—that is, a permanent prosecute larger powers. The historical origins process of collectively communicating, 5. Vladimir Lenin, “Working-Class and Bourgeois of the National Democratic Movement of the critiquing, and shaping our understanding Democracy” in Lenin Collected Works, Vol. 8 Philippines can be found in the revolutionary of culture, not as an administered identity (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, figure of Andrés Bonifacio (1863–1897), who but as one in constant movement. This does 1962), 72–82. in 1896 declared Filipino independence not mean that art can replace—or must from Spain, which had occupied the country obliterate—state structure; instead it suggests 6. Alain Badiou and Gregory Elliott, The Rebirth of since the 16th century. Bonifacio was aided that if there should ever be such a thing as a History (London-New York: Verso, 2012), 40. by the United States, which promised the state, it should be reflective of the permanent establishment of an independent Filipino process through which a people’s culture 7. Upton Sinclair, Mammonart (San Diego: Simon republic during the Spanish-American War of manifests and expresses itself, not as an Publications, 2003), 386. 1898. However, the United States occupied administered entity, restricted or restricting the country until 1946, after which, according any form of communication. Art of the 8. Adding Hezbollah to the EU Terrorist List— to the National Democratic Movement, it stateless is our way out of prehistory. Hearing before the Subcommittee on Europe continued to instrumentalize subsequent of the Committee on Foreign Affairs House of “independent” governments of the Philippines. Representatives, June 20, 2007. Jonas Staal is a visual artist whose work deals with the In the 1960s, Professor Jose Maria Sison, relation between art, propaganda, and democracy. 9. The First Propaganda Movement had manifested founder of both the Communist Party of the itself against the Spanish under the leadership Philippines and the New People’s Army, called of nationalists and revolutionaries, writers and for a Second Propaganda Movement, a cultural journalists, among whom José Rizal, Marcelo H. uprising that demanded independence.9 It is del Pilar, and Graciano López Jaena were central in this context that the figure of the artist as figures. “cultural worker” emerged and became central to understanding the role of art within the 10. For a more detailed exploration of the concept of National Democratic Movement. The cultural the cultural worker and people’s culture: Jonas worker, within this movement, broadcasts the Staal (ed.), Towards a People’s Culture (Utrecht: Filipino people’s right to self-determination, BAK, Basis voor actuele kunst, 2013), www.newworldsummit.eu 30 31 Debt as Power: Thomas Gokey and Laura Hanna, two co-founders of Debt Collective, on the evolving language around debt and From Shame organizing potential of debtor unions to Possibility

32 33 The Debt Collective is a pro-union membership organization THOMAS GOKEY: Looking back to the thing to celebrate and continue to think consisting of debtors, activists, and academics that has successfully founding of Debt Collective, the thing that I critically about. There is a difference in the was just totally wrong about was this emphasis language we use. While we think and talk about eliminated over a billion dollars in debt and boosted collective on scale—this idea that we would need millions debt abolition, the mainstream political and bargaining as a key weapon in the fight to end Americans’ financial of people to go on strike to have any real electoral space talk about debt cancellation. despair. It developed out of two previous campaigns that came power. When we actually did launch the first We’ve had a lot of conversations with other student debt strike a few years after that, it activists or advocates around that language. out of the Occupy movement, Strike Debt and Rolling Jubilee: the started small with 15 people and then it quickly I still prefer “abolition” because the language former encouraged collective action and offered advice to escape the grew to a couple thousand people, which was points to ending a systemic harm rather than predatory debt system; the latter bought medical and student debts still a relatively small number of people. But it simply cancelling out an action. I also like had such moral force behind it, and it had such the language of “reparative public goods.” for pennies on the dollar to write them off. While both provided some media attention behind it, that a strike that There are also other good organizers and good wins, these strategies had limits. started with 15 people has now resulted in over activists working on reparative public goods $1 billion worth of debt discharged. That is a as a project, and I think that our work fits into pretty good ratio for the number of strikers to that. Reparative public goods puts race at the A new idea, Debt Collective, was established in 2014 by Hannah the amount of debt! So, it makes me think that center of the demand for public goods. So the Appel, Thomas Gokey, Laura Hanna, Luke Herrine, Ann Larson, and if we are going to get rid of all $1.7 trillion of debtors’ movement recognises that not all Astra Taylor to make further progress. The Debt Collective helped student debt—or $80 billion worth of medical debt is experienced in the same way because debt—so long as the moral force is there, the of racialized capitalism and the privatization aggrieved students from the for-profit Corinthian College to go on numbers can start out smaller potentially. I still of public goods as an attempt to deny people strike by withholding loan payments and won cancelation for about think the sky’s the limit if we can get millions of access to their rights. While we are challenged $1 billion. That protest helped build the foundation for the new loan- people to go on strike though! around a whole set of problems, I do feel cancellation plans popular today. 2020 U.S. presidential candidate like there is much more action and a kind of LAURA HANNA: Yes, that’s interesting… coordinated opposition. We have a campaign Elizabeth Warren proposed eliminating up to $50,000 of debt for there’s slippage between what we would that we are about to launch on the next student each student, and soon after Bernie Sanders proposed eliminating perceive as symbolic power or symbolic debt strike, and we are always thinking about all of it. We asked Thomas Gokey and Laura Hanna, two of the gesture versus real power. That was something what motivates people to make demands for we definitely worked with and learned from in public goods and whether people will be willing co-founders of Debt Collective to talk about the evolving language our earlier work. I think we need to understand to stop cooperating in a certain way. around debt and the organizing potential of debtor unions. power in different ways and leverage speech through different platforms, and really I think that climate change is a very large continue to build and leverage collective factor now, and that student debtors might be speech. It reminds me of a conversation that more likely to go on a student debt strike in I had with Debt Strike co-founder Astra Taylor connection with a Green New Deal or a broader where we were talking about speech within transition; so that’s something that we need to labor organizing and that collective bargaining think about and, of course, how we talk about in a strike was considered speech. We can get those connections is critical for organizing so caught up elevating individual activists, purposes. Climate change activists are looking writers, or so-called thought leaders speaking at the economy and thinking about strikes in their mind—the individual—that focusing on different ways, many activists are younger, and what collective speech is and how to build people are searching for new ways to assert power using it is interesting to me. I think that power and build leverage. That’s on my mind that’s a different type of power. a lot lately. But noting that debt cancellation is now mainstream, that two candidates Previous: Strike Debt launched The Rolling Jubilee, a campaign I’ve also been thinking about the language. have talked about it, that they have relied on to buy debt for pennies on the dollar, with a variety show and Our work has basically entered into the our work specifically to address solving the telethon in 2012. Photos courtesy of Not An Alternative. electoral cycle and that’s a really important problem is really exciting.

34 DEBT AS POWER DEBT AS POWER 35 By not naming really important and challenging the false almost nobody had heard about, and which LAURA: If full cancellation were to happen, morality is a necessary step. We started our had never really been used. But it is existing rather than just destroy student loans, we could systemic harm the organizing work by meeting people where they law that says these debts really should be also say that the button would help people were at (experiencing debt as an individual) eliminated. It turns out that even when the start to repair their lives. That’s also critical. Right can always use and then did the hard work to link those law and the facts are on your side, power has a experiences to a broader struggle. By taking tremendous way of being very reluctant about THOMAS: Exactly. We can’t underestimate the individual for any this approach we are able to break through doing what the law requires… But moving the social and the psychological tax that debt the shame and translate that into a position forward, we are asking, “How do we get rid of takes. A study was just released showing that story it wants to tell. of collective power. This is a big part of our all student debt or almost all of the student for every dollar you raise minimum wage, the By creating shame political education project. debt?” There is another legal mechanism called number of suicides dramatically reduces by the “compromise and settlement” authority a certain percentage.1 Poverty and austerity, and a stigma around THOMAS: Since the Right is always framing that we’ve put our fingers on. It’s a part of they show up in so many different problems, the national debt as being this really important the Higher Education Act reauthorization. that it’s hard to capture and calculate the indebtedness the Right thing, and the reason why we can’t provide The law gives the Secretary of Education the total benefit of living in a society where you social goods or public goods, I was also authority to write down student debt for any can be a dignified human being, where you effectively silenced interested in stealing or reframing some of the reason, or no reason at all. And we have very are encouraged to flourish, and you are language of the Right. You know, just recently, good reasons to write down this student debt. encouraged to produce wealth that doesn’t large numbers of the for example, Elizabeth Warren announced that It benefits everybody if we do that. But so far necessarily show up in the GDP. There ends population. she’s going to use this mechanism that we have the Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, has up being multiplier effects that you can’t been pushing everyone for: a “compromise and refused to use that power. The way that I’ve calculate. And I feel like we’ve been in this settlement” to modify student debt so that you been thinking about this is that it’s almost as vicious cycle on the other side, where all of THOMAS: The landscape really has shifted can just write it down. And the Department of if Congress, whether they intended to or not, these problems compound and reflect one dramatically. And, you know, even people like Education’s official spokesperson, Liz Hill, said created this giant debt trap of the student another. Something has got to give. Somebody Sanders and Warren have shifted dramatically. in their official response that “her colleagues debt system and wired into it a self-destruct online said, “Can you imagine the party in If you look at some of the legislation that they and Congress would find it surprising that she button… the streets that is going to happen when we were introducing several years ago, it wasn’t has the authority to do so much spending.” But have a student debt jubilee, and it’s all gone?” that great. But I certainly welcome the massive why is canceling debt considered “spending?” I think about it like the scene from the first Star And I, for one, hope there are some massive shift in the landscape. We don’t talk about a tax cut for the 1% as Wars movie where they got the schematics parties in the streets. But to me, the thing that spending. So it really does clarify, for me at for the Death Star, and they realized that this instantly came to mind is, “Oh, I’m not going LAURA: The Right has had the resources to least, how this austerity language functions. massive planet-destroying machine has a fatal to be partying in the street. I’m going to get my build institutional power that the Left lacks. It When you are simply refusing to collect revenue flaw in its design. And if you just puncture it first good night’s sleep in my adult life!” Debt is disturbing to see how rightwing mainstream from rich people it’s not counted as spending, in just the right place, the whole thing gets is such an immaterial thing but it shows up in media shapes our public. In the United States but when you are refusing to collect revenue destroyed. And so that self-destruct button your body. The phrase that comes to mind is we do not use words like “austerity.” By from poor people suddenly that’s spending! is called “compromise and settlement.” What “the body keeps score.” I feel like I’ve got my focusing on debt rather than austerity one can we need to do over the course of the next credit score but I’ve also got this other score cut off the possibility of a systemic narrative LAURA: I guess we should explain what year is organize and use direct action to build that I am ready to settle. I want to sleep. and instead tell stories about the individual “compromise and settlement” is and why it’s power and pressure so that the people can and the individual responsibility. By not important to communicate that it’s not about gain access to the levers of power to press that naming systemic harm the Right can always bypassing Congress. self-destruct button. It’s important that we 1. A report by Debt Collective member Luke Herrine use the individual for any story it wants to press that self-destruct button in a way that provides more detail: https://bit.ly/2TKqMQ5 tell. By creating shame and a stigma around THOMAS: So, what worked for us with the first destroys all student debt because only wiping Thomas Gokey is a visual artist and an organizer with indebtedness the Right effectively silenced student debt strike among former for-profit away a small fraction will basically keep lower the Debt Collective. large numbers of the population. I recall when Corinthian College students was combining the income working class people with high debt we first started organizing, we were stealing pressure of a direct action—of a strike—with a in the same position. They will still have tens Laura Hanna is a filmmaker, media activist and the language of the Right in order to flip it legal mechanism to meet our demands. In that of thousands of dollars worth of remaining organizer. She co-founded the Debt Collective, an on its head. Understanding the neoliberal case, it was this very obscure legal mechanism debt, and the interest is just going to grow until economic justice organization that advocates for the rightwing narrative around indebtedness is called “Borrower Defense to Repayment” that they’re back at where they were before. rights of debtors.

36 DEBT AS POWER DEBT AS POWER 37 A Radical Re-settlement:

Walking the Talk on Indigeneity The organization Ekvn-Yefolecv

ee-gun yee-full-lee-juh, a double entendre meaning Returning to the Earth/Returning to Our Homelands

is a Maskoke collective committed to embracing the Marcus Briggs-Cloud role of protecting and reviving traditional relationships to the earth while revitalizing language and culture.

38 39 I USED TO THINK that the most critical issue words amid a sentence for lack of not having Maskoke People face was language loss as that particular term. Since my elders did it, I our ancient, yet threatened, language was mirrored their example. After all, it seemed projected to fall silent by the year 2040. I inevitable to speak Maskoke with recurring thought language revitalization was the sole English usage due to the remarkable amount work to be done to restore wellness among of time we interface with the English speaking our Maskoke People. That monolithic thinking world. I also began noticing that language came to an abrupt halt upon awakening to the immersion programs globally were addressing reality that efficacious language revitalization this pervasive issue of obsolescence by work is contingent upon numerous importing nouns/concepts from the settler- interconnected factors that address systemic colonial society around them and crafting issues through a holistic lens. In order to see new words to convey those nouns/concepts. a real reversal of language loss, we have to Initially, this seemed like a worthy practice, but altogether change the way we live. I started thinking more critically about this. In my own Maskoke context, by the time we The journey goes something like this, I wanted import into our lexicon 3,000+ words that are to see my language survive and went from inherently premised on post-industrialization thinking that teaching words for animals, capitalist ideology, we’ve deviated significantly numbers, and colors (like the methodology from the unique bio-regionally derived of most community-based endangered traditional ethos that our ancestors left to us in language of fluent Maskoke new grow generations To in Ekvn-Yefolecv’s no English is spoken speakers, of courtesy Photo program. immersion language Briggs-Cloud. Marcus language programs) was actually making an the first place. We would find our Indigenous impact, to then thinking that teaching in the ontological worldview, that is inextricably tied university system in Oklahoma was going to to the natural world, flipped upside-down. be the successful avenue to revitalize Maskoke Therefore, such a practice begs the question, language, to then realizing that I didn’t even “Why not just speak English?” In order to see a real reversal of have a goal or expectation to know how to assess what success would look like. It took a In our Maskoke medicinal traditions, language loss, we have to altogether little time to sort through the many band-aid practitioners sing prescribed formulas in our options but with the Maskoke language on language and blow into plant concoctions, the brink of extinction, I began to promote the which results in an efficacious healing change the way we live. message that there should be only one goal substance to be consumed by members of to which we aspire in language revitalization the ceremonial community. These medicine work—that is, to grow new fluent speakers! traditions are required components of Maskoke Posketv (often referred to as Green Corn Dance) The Indigenous Language Institute estimates ceremonies which renew our relationship to vocabulary to dump into our lexicon felt like Georgia today, to lands 700 miles away in only 20 Indigenous languages will still be the natural world around us. Our prophecies an unjust compromise of our indigeneity. I what are colonially known today as Oklahoma spoken (in the U.S. context) by the year 2050. tell us that if we cease conducting our Posketv started thinking more radically about a theory and Florida. It became spiritually evident It might seem like an elementary concept that ceremonies, thereby allowing our sacred fires of change. It became apparent that we would that we needed to assemble an intentional the foremost goal of any language program is to go out, Maskoke People will perish. No have to recreate the society in which our community of like-minded Maskoke folks who to grow new fluent speakers, but the reality language means no ceremony; no ceremony language once historically functioned best, are products of forced removal to return to our is, such a goal is actually seldom established. means Maskoke People will perish. So, which was, unsurprisingly, a society premised homelands for the purpose of committing to I noticed that when I spoke my own language, ultimately the silence of the Maskoke language on intimate relations with the natural world. both biophysical and ceremonial stewardship it was standard practice to insert English equals the disappearance of Maskoke People. From this consciousness emerged the vision to of the land our ancestors cared for since time Both accommodating the settler-colonial build an ecovillage. immemorial. Cultivating a vision for a decade Previous: A Maskoke child holds tomatoes grown apparatus by inserting so much English amid and then searching and praying for the most in the Ecovillage greenhouses. Residents grow vegetables based on the traditional diets of their Maskoke sentences, and the alternative Our ancestors were forcibly removed from appropriate parcel of land for another five ancestors. Photo courtesy of Marcus Briggs-Cloud. option of composing an abundance of new what are colonially known as Alabama and years, Ekvn-Yefolecv closed on 600 acres of our

40 A RADICAL RE-SETTLEMENT A RADICAL RE-SETTLEMENT 41 traditional homelands on January 12, 2018. It to learn how to cook for persons with chronic is an indescribable feeling to once again reside illnesses and learning to tailor recipes to in the world that our ancestors inhabited. traditional foods that we can grow and for which we forage. These are learning curves, As we were traditionally an agrarian society, as we are having to slowly reclaim traditional our contemporary society must be centered knowledge from various sources. We are also on agricultural practices in order to provide learning what it means to eat “traditional the host activities for our ancient lexicon to foods” in an era of climate crisis wherein thrive in the most authentic Maskoke way, our food choices also impact all Peoples’ and more notably to augment the ability to livelihoods. This causes us to reflect on what it engage agriculture in culturally competent means when we say vnokeckv etemocet fullēt ways. Critical linguistic analysis of Maskoke owēs, “we going about having love for one language enables us to extrapolate the another” to extend to all Peoples, especially traditional epistemological worldview that the most vulnerable Peoples of the planet. our ancestors left to us (as it is intact in the language’s grammar), concerning appropriate We are regularly discerning ways in which we ways in which we are to interact with the can walk the talk! For instance, we have to: natural world. It establishes an ethic that remain conscious of what kind of decolonial constrains our ability to participate in the language curriculum to build from scratch for commodification of Earth, at least when our students (across age groups); design and speaking Maskoke language. In other words, implement regenerative agricultural practices; we are forced to resort to English language explore ways to ensure many forms of health practices to articulate such environmentally for ecovillage residents; develop plans to exploitative and extractive activity. reduce ecological footprint; generate revenue from non-extractive economy-based ventures

Considering Indigenous language revitalization so the ecovillage can be sustained; navigate of the in preparation sturgeon The author handles a male lake regional restore to efforts of the Ecovillage’s as part spawn watersheds. species in surrounding populations of the endangered Briggs-Cloud. of Marcus courtesy Photo work then must not contribute to ecological and maintain harmony among diverse destruction, our community had to start personalities—including traditional conflict thinking about how we build this ecovillage resolution mechanisms to retain ecovillage in non-extractive ways. For instance, our population; overcome lateral oppression; language immersion program, wherein no learn natural building construction; relearn the English is spoken, requires a decolonial lens ecology of our traditional homelands; try to that penetrates our tendencies to adopt piece together our traditional canon of stories conventional ways in which we school our that provide the foundation for understanding children—such as not building lesson plans significant ecological places/spaces/species; It is an indescribable feeling around disposable materials that are only and the list goes on. Simply trying to save a fun for 20 minutes but end up in a landfill language from extinction has necessitated the shortly thereafter; contributing to methane gas creation of a new society. We are not so naive to once again reside in the emissions that warm the planet. Additionally, as to believe that our ecovillage is somehow elder language bearers that have diabetes exempt from globalization or climate crisis, but world that our ancestors and hypertension do not feel like interacting it is just insular enough to retain our language with many folks when struggling with their and culture with exponentially more integrity sicknesses. Thus, decolonizing our diets than we’ve had the chance to do since we were inhabited. became imperative, though this has not displaced from our traditional homelands happened without resistance from our elders 182 years ago. We can once again be full-time who love soda pop and spam! And, not without Indians instead of having to schedule our time working with a dietician for several months to be Indian over the weekend at a ceremony.

42 A RADICAL RE-SETTLEMENT A RADICAL RE-SETTLEMENT 43 In twenty-five years, Ekvn-Yefolecv Maskoke Ecovillage will be the only place on the entire planet where one can go to hear the Maskoke language spoken fluently.

All buildings in the Ecovillage are timber-frame constructed to uphold the community’s values in reducing its carbon footprint. Photo courtesy of Marcus Briggs-Cloud.

44 A RADICAL RE-SETTLEMENT A RADICAL RE-SETTLEMENT 45 Ekvn-Yefolecv rejects capital and material as minimal embodied energy requirements in American capitalist dream. Recognizing that accumulation and is an income sharing fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions. the ecovillage lifestyle may be simple and Marcus Briggs-Cloud (Maskoke) is a language revitalizer, community wherein residents receive a modest Felling, skidding, debarking, and milling the associated with living “poor,” a number of scholar, musician, and co-director of Ekvn-Yefolecv. stipend for performing rotating duties, in timbers is performed by ecovillage residents. Ekvn-Yefolecv residents have decided that addition to receiving a timber-framed tiny Slowing down also requires stewardship of because they have agency in living this way, home for residence. The entire world must learn the land and restoration of regional animal and see the genuine quality of life in this to slow down and simplify human lifeways. The populations such as the buffalo and lake paradigm, they have actually come to perceive objective is not to return to a Clovis Indian era sturgeon. The implementation of holistic it as legitimate liberation from oppression. of living, but rather incorporate sustainability management with the buffalo through technologies that provide a good quality rotational grazing is labor intensive and All this is to say that if one wants to revitalize of living while demonstrating reverence for requires an intimate relationship and trust Maskoke language, not only do you have to Earth and all living beings. Green technologies with the buffalo as opposed to conventional speak to children exclusively in the language alone are not the answer, rather, it must be farming practices that lead to soil degradation. (NO English) from their pre-verbal stage coupled with an entire lifestyle draw-down. We are working to restore a threatened fish onward, you also have to: know how to grow As we were compiling an energy budget, it species that is sacred to our People, the beets and native pumpkins for community became apparent that certain technologies lake sturgeon, in the watershed from which health and save seed; generate revenue from would not be possible to deploy. For instance, it was extirpated in the 1950’s due to the regenerative practices; clean poop from a some residents of Ekvn-Yefolecv formerly erection of hydroelectric dams. All of these bucket instead of wasting potable water to enjoyed using an instant pot to cook with, but aforementioned practices require a lot of work send your poop to an unknown place; toast acorns you harvested in the woods with little kids on a rocket oven that required you to cut wood from the forest; mourn the loss of This is all part of slowing down our a sturgeon when she passes and honor the sturgeon with a song each time you harvest lives, which makes us open to the one to nourish an elder language bearer; cease mansplaining; quit buying frivolous medicine to grow stronger. plastics; turn to the sun each morning and give thanks for the day and for its energy to power your LED lights; and, most importantly, an instant pot requires 1000 watts to run a 20 and a lot of time, but that also means less time cultivate tons of love and compassion! In minute session. The typical settler-colonial to participate in capitalist-consumerism. It is twenty-five years, Ekvn-Yefolecv Maskoke mainstream response is, “How many more also what is necessary, in a spirit of reciprocity, Ecovillage will be the only place on the entire solar panels will we need to run the instant pot to be in good relationship with the natural planet where one can go to hear the Maskoke and toaster and…?” Our response is simply, world. language spoken fluently. Through this holistic “We don’t need an instant pot or toaster paradigm, we project that in two generations, or…!” This is all part of slowing down our Admittedly, minimalist living, income sharing, having raised children as full-time Indigenous lives, which makes us open to the medicine to cleaning composting toilets, swimming with People, Maskoke language will be the primary grow stronger in our lives. Cutting firewood to sturgeon, and inhaling bison breath all sound language spoken at Ekvn-Yefolecv Maskoke operate a rocket oven or rocket mass heater is like utopian lifeways, but engaging Maskoke Ecovillage. Residents will be spiritually and more time consuming than turning on a grid- folks in this project has not been without physically healthy persons who inherited a tied thermostat, but the rocket mass heater immense ambivalence. Some community resilient non-extractive, small-scale society in is much more energy efficient—so it’s good members have wrestled with a difficult-to- the midst of climate crisis. We hope to serve as to Earth. Moreover, one burns lots of calories identify issue that even though the philosophy a replicable archetype for other communities and strengthens core muscles by harvesting all sounded “right,” their apprehensions were to implement in their own contexts premised firewood and splitting it. We have adopted emerging from correlating such a lifestyle on intimate relations with the natural world, timber-framing construction because it to impoverished living conditions in their where our unique languages and cultural coincides with our philosophical values, such childhoods. We were all taught to pursue the lifeways thrive once again.

46 A RADICAL RE-SETTLEMENT A RADICAL RE-SETTLEMENT 47 Meet the Progressive Consultancy Cooperative Helping Barcelona

Miguel Robles-Durán in Conversation with Gala Pin and Laia Forné

Urban Front is a transnational consultancy cooperative formed in 2019 by independent associates around the world with headquarters in Barcelona, Medellín, Montevideo, New York City, Ottawa, Paris, Quito, and Rotterdam. The group was started by 21 highly experienced practitioners and activists with the goal of providing trans- disciplinary research support and tactical directions to progressive governments, non-governmental organizations, and foundations on critical socio-spatial matters relating to uneven urban development and environmental degradation. The conversation that follows is between three of Urban Front’s founding members, structured by Miguel Robles-Durán, to highlight the governance experience of Gala Pin, former City Counselor of Barcelona’s Ciutat Vella and Laia Forné, former Director of the Area for Citizen Participation of the Barcelona City Council. From 2015 to 2019, Gala and Laia developed public policies on citizen participation, urban commons, and social innovation for the city of Barcelona, under the leadership of Ada Colau and Locals and tourists heavily traffic La Rambla, a 1.2 kilometer Barcelona en Comú. pedestrian street running through Barcelona’s city center. Cropped from original. Image by osapanacar.

48 49 MIGUEL ROBLES-DURÁN: To begin the LAIA FORNÉ: What I perceived while conversation, it is important to contrast working in Barcelona’s administration is that, Urban Front as a progressive consultancy usually, serious advances were made when organization, fully committed to social the administration was able to think together and environmental justice issues, with with other actors who possessed other types the many neoliberal or neoconservative of knowledge, which is very different from international consultancies such as McKinsey, the specific bureaucratic knowledge of the PricewaterhouseCoopers, or Bloomberg administration. So, in that sense, the tripartite Associates that have monopolized urban collaboration between public administrations, consultancy around the world. social movements, and a progressive knowledge platform such as Urban Front can GALA PIN: There are many companies generate the type of knowledge necessary for working with public administrations that urban social innovations to emerge. However, specialize in developing public-private for this to happen, Urban Front has to be able enterprises following pre-established, to compete in the public market place, which pre-distributed, and/or re-distributive is currently where public resources drain to the neoliberal frameworks. Urban innovations private sector. Here, a big question emerges. that come from the private sector are How is a progressive urban consultancy group offered to public administrations as for-sale like Urban Front able to compete with many solutions to problems, but it is important to of the multinational neoliberal consulting approach these problems from a space that companies that plague public administrations acknowledges that democratic, social, and today? economic innovation occurs in areas beyond private companies, right? In reality, public In Barcelona, at the scale of the municipality, administrations need to have the capacity it was easier to work with local progressive to act and adapt themselves based on the think tanks or small consulting groups. But Gala Pin, right, on stage with Ada Colau, the Mayor of Barcelona, for a Barcelona en changes that are taking place in society, its as soon as you began to scale up, both at Comú open meeting. Photo by Marc Lozano, courtesy of Barcelona en Comú. urban ecology, and beyond. That’s what Urban the territorial or regional level, as well as Front is set to do—to be able to influence into matters of service infrastructures and public administrations by offering them a environmental problems—for example on Urban innovations that come from range of approximations to the many urban energy, migration, or global warming issues—it problems that they constantly address from a was almost impossible to find progressive the private sector are offered to social and environmental justice perspective, partners that were compatible with our left rather than the neoliberal one offered by political positions. All you could find were public administrations as for-sale the competition, which mainly focuses on pro-neoliberal multinational consulting benefiting private profits above everything corporations. solutions to problems, else. A city is not just an urban design problem, a mobility problem, a housing problem, or This may be the advantage of Urban Front an inequality problem, but rather a city is a being a transnational consultancy network, as but it is important to approach complex of all these situations. In order to it can inform any administration about what address these problems you must have a is happening in other places. While it is very these problems from a space that transversal and integral vision of its realities. difficult to replicate things from one territory acknowledges that democratic, social, This is where Urban Front can be a very useful to another, Urban Front is able to give public tool for public administrations, as it is able administrations tools that they can then adapt and economic innovation occurs in to offer more capacity to intervene in these or use as a basis for thinking of approximations increasingly complex social realities for the to problems on a local level. Urban Front is also areas beyond private companies. social and environmental good. able to put public administrations in contact

50 HELPING BARCELONA HELPING BARCELONA 51 with other administrations when it might make mobility, and tourism. The competition forced Splashy physical sense to delve into similar problems together. the team that won to focus on strategies that We want administrations in different places to involved local communities, social problems, collaborate and work as networks too. environmental concerns, and the like. The urban interventions by strategies addressed urban transformations I don’t know if Urban Front might one day be such as promoting culture and public spaces “starchitects” don’t have able to fully compete or not, but to be able for community interactions in the Rambla, and to think of alternatives to the big companies solutions to tourist overcrowding. Taking these an integral vision of the that already operate in the market is an elements into account, the urban technicians imperative objective. Although there is a will drew up the physical proposal to transform social, economic, and of progressive governments to work with the Rambla. So, in this case it was pretty others, the hard part for them today is finding positive because the process forced urban environmental dynamics outside consultancies that can really develop transformations to be generated with a diverse services on a higher scale in terms of territory group of people. Friends who are dedicated or production level. to critical urbanism or social rights issues that pertain to the place. were suddenly being called by well-known MIGUEL: Let’s talk about your experiences architecture firms asking if they would join working inside Barcelona’s government. You their team because they didn’t have the ability are both mentioning the need to introduce to do that. different approaches to urban governance, and Gala Pin, the former councilor of citizen participation in the you are both bringing into topic the necessity MIGUEL: In which way, Gala, could a Barcelona City Council, leads an open meeting with residents of inter-urban or inter-regional cooperation transnational urban consultancy cooperative in her district Ciutat Vella. Photos by Marc Lozano, courtesy of as well as the application of custom like Urban Front have supported your efforts in Barcelona en Comú. transdisciplinary frameworks of understanding public administration? and approaching complex urban processes. Can you think of a concrete example in GALA: When we were addressing the issue Barcelona’s public administration that might of drug dealing in empty houses in Raval give us a better sense of the progressive [a neighborhood along the Rambla], for mental shifts that you are talking about? example, we needed a plan that included the many perspectives of the community. Most GALA: The administration’s approach to administrations would have addressed this the transformation of the Rambla [a popular issue purely from a security perspective, but pedestrian boulevard that runs through we needed to ensure that the most vulnerable the city center] comes to mind. We decided people were not left behind which, in this case, not to immediately seek a dramatic multi- were the heroin users. We wanted to approach million Euro, large-scale spatial restructuring, it from many vantage points—health, socio- but rather an intervention adapted to the spatial transformation, housing, the police, and current needs of the city. We acknowledged the community—and a consultancy group like that splashy physical urban interventions by Urban Front could have helped administrations “starchitects” don’t have an integral vision find all the interconnected entry points for of the social, economic, and environmental dealing with these complex issues. dynamics that pertain to the place. For example, one of the things we didn’t do in So, we developed an international competition the administration, and which I think Urban that looked for an interdisciplinary team with Front could have provided, was to develop a methodology that addressed the urban indicators to evaluate the public policies environment—that is, social rights, culture, that are implemented from an integral and

52 HELPING BARCELONA HELPING BARCELONA 53 transdisciplinary perspective. Normally, GALA: To add to what Laia said, Decidim administrations tend to work with indicators was conceived out of the slogan, “Public that are hyper-deterministic—by this I mean money, public code,” which has to do with You have to work from the idea that indicators that come from a static singular development of free software as a public point of view or that measure a singular policy proposal. A big problem for the city people are not idiots and understand outcome. Being transdisciplinary by nature, council of Barcelona, as well as for many other Urban Front has the capacity to develop municipalities of the Spanish State, is that complex and dynamic indicators that cross- the software management, and therefore, the complexities involved, and that reference and transversally dissect the many the knowledge of the management, is outcomes of a public policy, as well as aid in outsourced to private software companies there are citizens with expertise that predicting variations and indeterminacies of which create the technological solutions that the social dynamics as they respond to a policy the administrations implement. What Decidim you have to be able to integrate. or policies. proposes is public-community governance, so to speak, where the governance of that MIGUEL: Laia, one very important project software takes place among those who use that you worked on while in the administration it. The knowledge of management is shared, was the development of a digital platform which is very important because otherwise you cooperatives in relation to the production of I believe that most public administrations for citizen participation called Decidim. The end up privatizing the knowledge of the tools this new tool. today have little or no capacity to really other day, David Harvey [another member] that the public administration has and, above know the private actors that drain public and I were talking about how Urban Front all, of critical infrastructures. GALA: Also, since this is software that the investment, and that without these diagnoses needs to develop digital tools that can mediate public owns, Urban Front could suggest ways it is very difficult for any administration to public governance, community needs, and As an interface, Decidim proposes the different groups could modify the software take measures in this critical area. Urban policy. How was your experience leading the articulation of listening mechanisms between later and continue using it for other needs. You Front has the knowledge to diagnose and development and implementation team? the inside and outside, which is all part of don’t have to go back and renew the contract develop useful tools to go deeper and make being able to have citizen participation beyond with any of the private companies that have action in the public-private space much more LAIA: Decidim is a good example because it the formal spaces generated by the physical monopolized this space and pay a lot of public just and efficient. This, with the support of actually works, and it goes to the root of many gathering of a town hall. Decidim has a section money to them. local communities and their knowledge, things. It supports all the existing tools that for each process that allows documents can encourage the formation of new public- the city council uses at all decision levels and related to that process to be posted, from a MIGUEL: Laia, there is much talk within community partnerships that can replace is free, open source software. For the first time, neighborhood movement to the creation of Urban Front about the governance paradigm neoliberal public-private dogmas. public money was used to create public and a land use plan. Obviously, it does not mean shift from the public-private partnerships to open digital platforms, and this has produced that everyone is going to read something like the public-communitarian. This has also been an important shift in the administration’s a land use plan, but you have to work from the a goal of many involved in Barcelona’s public Laia Forné is an urban sociologist specializing in urban digital investment approach. We tried to idea that people are not idiots and understand administration. How can Urban Front support planning, democracy, and commons, and has served bridge existing management models within the complexities involved, and that there are this needed shift? as an advisor for public administrations in Barcelona, Spain. the administration. The city council had in citizens with expertise that you have to be place tools that internalized the execution of able to integrate. And above all, Decidim was LAIA: What Urban Front proposes is the Gala Pin is a former councilor in the first legislature of its annual plan and mandate, closing it from imagined and designed to generate collective need of making another type of economy Barcelona en Comú where she was in charge of citizen public view, but through Decidim, we made it debate and not as reproduction of another that can reproduce community, collective, participation and the district of Ciutat Vella. possible to communicate directly to citizens cryptic and bureaucratic digital tool. and cooperative knowledge. Perhaps the the degree of compliance with this plan in first thing we need to do to support public Miguel Robles-Durán is co-founder of Cohabitation Strategies, a non-profit cooperative for socio-spatial real time. Decidim transforms an internal MIGUEL: Urban Front could approach administrations in this shift is to identify development, and an Associate Professor of Urbanism management tool through which municipal software development by emphasizing the exactly who is operating in the urban territory at The New School in New York City. workers communicate into something that training of people in the communities on at the level of economic capital, and who the public can use to hold accountability coding, graphic design, or management, so they are connected to, and what sectors they and to propose improvements directly to the that the same communities could develop the control, right? administration itself. digital platform while they create new working

54 HELPING BARCELONA HELPING BARCELONA 55 Like concentric circles reverberating from a stone dropped in water, sitting within the estuary of the La Plata River places one within the overlapping spheres that make up the Río de la Plata, a vast South American water drainage basin spanning numerous countries and populations, second in size only to the Amazon basin. For three decades, artist and lawyer Alejandro Meitin has worked within this immense natural network and over four years ago established Casa Río, a bioregional center of exchange, training, and learning built on the premise that revolutionary actions must be wedded to the environmental context in which they exist. Meitin spoke with Raquel de Anda about the implications self-governance and decolonization have within the grassroots ecological-political organization, and what changes an approach rooted in artistic practices could effect upon the colossal landscape and the A River Basin as people and environments which inhabit it.

Governance Lab RAQUEL DE ANDA: Can you provide some this brings together a series of issues that background about your practice? How long are closely related to the topic of watershed have you been working in the estuary of La geopolitics. I am particularly interested in Plata River and can you talk about the political investigating the linkages of these large basins Raquel de Anda and history of the area? with the European and Asian markets. I am Alejandro Meitin also interested in the political dynamics that ALEJANDRO MEITIN: My work begins in the occur in Latin American territories which are area of the southern coastal strip of the estuary directly influenced by global economies and of La Plata River, where I was born. The estuary extractive industries. is the final section of La Plata River Basin, the second largest basin in South America, and I live approximately 60 kilometers from the covers an area of approximately 3,200,000 City of Buenos Aires in a very small town called square kilometers. To get an idea of its size, it Punta Lara where we can somewhat see the is approximately one third of the total area of advances of this great mega-city and analyze the United States and it is almost equal to the and speculate from the space that is Casa Río, total area of all the countries that make up the not only the question of the geopolitics of European Union. From its watershed, the basin basins, but also the advances of urban areas area includes part of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, or marginal areas and the dynamics which are Paraguay and Uruguay, all of which feed into a established by urban growth. very large tributary network and provide water to the whole region. RAQUEL: What is Casa Río Power to do Lab and how did it develop from Ala Plástica, the It’s economically very important, just as the organization that you had co-founded earlier? Mississippi Basin is for the United States. So ALEJANDRO: Opposite: A map showing the area encompassed by Over the last 30 years, I the Río de la Plata drainage basin. Image courtesy developed a practice through an institutional of Alejandro Meitin. approach with Ala Plástica and, in the last 4–5

56 57 years, with the creation of Casa Río Power to architects, biologists, and young computer creation of biocultural corridors, or the delta’s do Lab, which is the new structure I have been scientists. It is specifically focused on working daily sustainable development. The vision of working on to build another type of strategy in on micro but also macro-political issues in the the territory. Operating since 1991, Ala Plástica form of a research study. We work with more than 18 organizations at governance that functioned as an artistic-environmental the territorial level. By inviting political actors, organization with characteristics of a non- RAQUEL: I would love to know a little about community actors, and scientists into this we speak of is governmental nature. In 2014, one of the last how you work in Casa Río as a multidisciplinary bioregional initiative, we are incorporating projects of Ala Plástica called for the basins group with strong relationships with the the perspective of artistic practice and social not the vision of to be a governance laboratory, which we environment, with the lands, but also with transformation onto large-scale dimensions developed together with Brian Holmes, Sarah different countries. How do you make with a geopolitical analysis. The idea is that the Lewison, Critical Art Ensemble, and Argentine, decisions and who is included? How do you distinctiveness of these types of networks of governance of, say, American, Barcelonian, and Ecuadorian artists. work on a hyper-local level and then on large organizations—that can function in many parts It was like a farewell piece for Ala Plástica, but scales? How does that way of growth work? of the world—can work in the form of regional The World Bank, in turn, gave way to the experience of Casa Río alliances that have real impact on decision- in 2016, where we continued with the artists ALEJANDRO: We have launched directly into making processes. but rather the who had participated in the experience of the a vast territory of a large-scale initiative called basins as governance laboratories. Humedales Sin Fronteras (Wetlands Without We have been working in this way since the construction of a Borders). It is somewhat the consolidation of days of Ala Plástica, and recognize in the I dedicated myself to building another type a project that we have been working on in the territory that this practice of artistic impact is political muscle. of organization that had in its interior the basins as a governance laboratory with local very important for everything that is related things that Ala Plástica did not have. Casa Río artists and communities, with regional nodes to processes of connecting to the territory, is a laboratory located in Punta Lara, a place and organizations in Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, of creation, of agreements, and of strategic for research on practices—as the name says, and Argentina. We are working on global or dialoguing with communities—even with thinking and work on the foundations of what a “to do lab”—and has an influence on the bioregional axes on several issues all of which political and scientific actors. our territory has to say. entire area of La Plata Basin, where our work are focused on the La Plata Basin area, such as has been focused for many years. At this time specific defense interests on the construction We work with young people, women’s groups, RAQUEL: I love that way of articulating it. I Casa Río is made up of a group of lawyers, of large mega-dams over the Paraná river, the grassroots organizations, and representatives would like to know a little more about your of the scientific field, as importantly as with way of understanding the importance of those in the political sphere, to create a new working as an artist. How has this idea of the approach to these areas in the decision- artist manifested in your practice? Likewise, making process. That is why the vision of how is it different from perhaps how the State governance that we speak of is not the vision would work in a place or on one of the ideas or of governance of, say, The World Bank, but issues that you focus on? rather the construction of a political muscle that is developed from a territorial perspective ALEJANDRO: The State, including academic and what we define as the vocation of place. entities or the entire constituted institution, To not repeat a discourse created in the works top down. It is a super-structure United States or in Europe, or even continue that descends on a territory, and that an artistic practice clearly influenced by the super-structure tries to achieve a certain United States-Europe axis, but instead to premeditated objective. In our case at Casa create our own adventure, our own utopia, our Río, like Ala Plástica before it, we emerge from own form of creation related to this territory, the community space in which we work. We with this community. never focus on thinking about our practices as projects, but rather we work with long-term That does not mean that it is independent initiatives and exercises that were given as a of what is happening on the global scale. It way to effect meaning throughout that work or

An islander and the Port of La Plata in of La Plata An islander and the Port Puig. Vila by Joan Photo Argentina. simply means that we need to decolonize our that “doing,” let’s say. Since I work in the social

58 A RIVER BASIN AS GOVERNANCE LAB A RIVER BASIN AS GOVERNANCE LAB 59 provided a conservation framework for riverine to defend the ecosystems, nature, and the environments in Argentina, including its human viability of communities. and non-human inhabitants. A key part of this work was the creation of an interactive map, RAQUEL: This work is absolutely necessary in made with open source mapping technology. a time when there are powers so great which are already entrenched in our countries—in This type of cross-sector collaboration brings the whole world—and at the same time, where to mind an individual project I developed last there are very strong pockets of resistance that year in the city of Bucaramanga, Colombia have been working for generations. at the invitation of the collective Espacios Revelados/Changing Places. In the city, there I’d like to address the idea of transformative were protests of 70,000-80,000 people in change. What is always necessary for me is defense of the city’s water supply. The entire to find a balance between a vision of utopia, region drinks water from the Santurban or a direction of where we want to go, and Páramo, a very pristine Andean tundra that at the same time, understand what needs to was being threatened by a large international be done right now with what is in front of us. gold mining company. Grounded in the idea Can you share some ideas about how you of post-extractivism, I organized a local team handle these ideas of utopia—of big systemic of artists and organizers and proposed to transformation—while managing the often create a cryptocurrency whose value asset difficult and complex tasks of daily life? is represented by the unextracted minerals field, I do not enjoy arriving in a community encapsulated in the mountain itself. Despite ALEJANDRO: You just have to throw already knowing what that community is able the political pressure they experienced, the yourself into the search for these utopias, to reproduce in order to have the promised local young people I was working with found trusting in its emergence, trusting in what outcome for the commissioning agent. such inspiration in the idea; they considered will happen. I don’t believe that a result this their life’s project. So we continued can be predetermined. The challenge is to We have also developed a subprogram called working long-distance, and less than a month advance the things that one believes and Territorios de Colaboración, Pedagogías de lo ago we officially formed CORPBAM [The Bank trust in the emergence of it, while constantly Anegado (Collaborative Territories, Flooded is the Mountain Corporation], of which I am strengthening more and more one’s values and Pedagogies) where we connect artists who the vice president, and the cryptocurrency distancing oneself from one’s “anti-values.” But have a long history of working in social WAcoin. To create local accountability, an hey, these are searches that everyone has to contexts with communities that have a long important part of the cryptocurrency will do in their own lives. The only thing I can say is: history in social transformation, and together remain in the hands of the miners and farmers do good without looking unto whom, and trust these groups generated five campaigns along of the tundra who are creating great pressure, the emergence. 400 kilometers in wetland territories of the so that extractive mining does not destroy the great Paraná River delta. The emerging works ecoregion and contaminate Bucaramanga’s of this transversal assembly were produced water. The currency will increase its value Raquel de Anda is a curator, producer, and cultural and presented as part of the international to the extent that the Páramo is not altered organizer based in Brooklyn, NY. Top: Who designs the territories? And for who are exhibition The Earth Will Not Abide in April and will be used to support conservation and Alejandro Meitin is an artist, lawyer, and social they designed? A performance in Campaign 4 of 2019, in the city of Rosario, one of the largest preservation projects of said ecosystem. innovator. He is the founder of the art collective Ala Collaborative Territories/Flooded Pedagogies. grain exporting ports in the world. We also held Plástica based in the city of La Plata, Argentina, and Photo courtesy of Alejandro Meitin. a three-day convening of 40 people, including This connects back to the issue of geopolitics Casa Río Power to do Lab. representatives of NGOs, environmentalists, in the territories in La Plata Basin and the Bottom: Wetland Law Now! A letterpress local political figures, journalists, artists, and major issue of mining in Latin America today. workshop organized as part of a campaign inhabitants of the islands. We included people There has been more active resistance from along the Paraná River delta for the project Collaborative Territories/Flooded Pedagogies. expelled from their lands for fighting for the the affected communities and environmental Photo courtesy of Alejandro Meitin. approval of a “Wetland Law” which would have groups who are participating in the struggle

60 A RIVER BASIN AS GOVERNANCE LAB A RIVER BASIN AS GOVERNANCE LAB 61 SINCE DECEMBER 28, 2019, hundreds of a half years after the aid was supposed to have earthquakes have hit Puerto Rico, which is still been distributed. People kept arriving and Organizing Mutual recovering from damage caused by Hurricane eventually held an assembly to decide whether María in 2017. Three weeks after the first or not they would open the warehouse and earthquakes, on January 18, 2020, a social release the much needed aid. The decision media independent reporter was tipped off was made to distribute the aid to the hundreds Solidarity Projects as to a warehouse in Ponce, a city south of the of people who had now gathered desperately main island of Puerto Rico, where aid had been seeking supplies. withheld since recovery efforts post-María. Over the next couple of days new protests So when the reporter, El Leon Fiscalizador (The were called, as the people of Puerto Rico an Act of Resistance Auditor Lion), announced the existence of a were infuriated by the government’s slow government-managed warehouse full of aid, and inadequate response to yet another dozens of people started arriving at the scene. ongoing disaster. It was a repetition of the Thousands watched the live feed on Facebook corruption and incompetence of the federal in Puerto Rico in complete disbelief of the revelation that and local governments that became clear there was all of this undistributed aid in the after Hurricane María and was aggravated middle of an ongoing seismic disaster two and by the neoliberal colonial mechanisms imposed on our islands, as exemplified by Jorge Díaz Ortiz Above: End the Debt! Decolonize! Liberate Puerto the Fiscal Control Board, that benefit private Rico!, a hand-illustrated scroll over 170 feet long and corporations and the political and financial 3 inches wide created by artists from AgitArte and elite at the expense of the Puerto Rican people. Papel Machete, in collaboration with Estefanía Rivera, Crystal Clarity, Rachel Schragis, and Emily Simons. All rights reserved, AgitArte.

62 63 Back in 2017, I was in Chicago launching the Taller we prepared over the next two days for These critical community spaces were initiated At one point, there were 14 functioning CAMs When We Fight, We Win! Arts and Culture Tour, the coming of the hurricane. We had over a by organizers, activists, and community throughout urban and rural areas of the main which culminated in the painting of a mural dozen volunteers, and we housed a couple of members who worked together for years as island of Puerto Rico’s archipelago. As the in Chicago celebrating the release of Puerto families who were in unsafe houses. part of an extended community of teachers, projects progressed, CAMs also offered the Rican political prisoner, Oscar López Rivera. social workers, students, lawyers, and artists services of popular health clinics, cultural The mural was a collaboration between the Hurricane María was catastrophic. Everything in frontline struggles against privatization and activities, community garden workshops, and Puerto Rican Cultural Center and AgitArte, our and everyone was affected. We lost power the US-imposed Fiscal Control Board. educational projects for adults and children. organization of working class artists engaged and barely had working telephone service, In addition to providing support to overcome in intersectional cultural solidarity and mutual and there was no running water on most of People from all over Puerto Rico came to Casa urgent needs in communities, we created aid projects in the United States and Puerto the islands. We started hearing about the Taller Cangrejera to check in and figure out discussion spaces to generate critical dialogue, Rico. increasing deaths throughout the island. how to start brigades. Our squad members in and the understanding that we were facing a Funeral homes were reporting that they New Orleans and Boston initiated a fundraising political disaster even more dangerous than In Puerto Rico, AgitArte was developing the could not keep up with the growing number campaign and sent a lot of aid to communities the natural disaster. networks and relationships to train folks who of bodies arriving each day. The government in Puerto Rico. The rapid distribution of aid were doing frontline work against the austerity collapsed and the lack of aid from federal and the creation of these Centros was possible AgitArte also initiated a theatrical and visual and privatization imposed by the fiscal authorities after Hurricane María opened due to the transnational relationships which arts rapid response in communities and CAMs control board. This oversight body was created up the possibility to build autonomous had been built through years of working arm around the island. This resulted in posters by PROMESA [the Puerto Rico Oversight, community initiatives of mutual support, and in arm with our kindred organizations and like “Fuck FEMA and the US MIlitary, Release Management, and Economic Stability Act] grassroots organizational structures emerged communities in the U.S. and in Puerto Rico. the Aid,” a middle finger in protest of the in 2016 and comprised of seven officials, based on cooperation and solidarity. We appointed by the U.S. President, who have knew very little at the time of the immense power over the Puerto Rican economy to pay devastation throughout the archipelago back Puerto Rico’s onerous debt. until we started brigades to bring aid to We were facing a political disaster communities all over the island. We organized Jornada Se Acabaron las Promesas, a diverse self-managed spaces around the main island even more dangerous than the group of frontline militant activists, organized a known as Centros de Apoyo Mutuo (Mutual series of very effective actions that culminated Support Centers or CAMs for short). In the on August 31, 2016, when Jornada stopped the CAMs, the following three main functions were: natural disaster. first PROMESA conference held in Condado, Puerto Rico. The success of direct actions • Establishing community kitchens and energized the movement, and a training on dining rooms where free meals were techniques to be used on the streets was prepared and served organized with Ruckus Society (a multi-racial network of trainers in direct action) the • Organizing collection centers where weekend before Hurricane María hit. local and diaspora aid was collected for distribution in the communities I got back to Puerto Rico on Friday, September according to needs assessed during 16th, and by the end of the weekend we visits to peoples’ homes received news of the unavoidable hit of Hurricane María’s path towards our islands. • Forming permanent solidarity brigades We didn’t have time to plan much, but we to open roads and access to homes established two meeting points, the Federación and support in agriculture and housing de Maestros de Puerto Rico (Federation of reconstruction Teachers), a very progressive and militant union in Puerto Rico, and Casa Taller Public spaces formed as CAMs brought much Cangrejera, AgitArte’s community and cultural needed food and supplies to communities hub and artist workshop in Santurce. In Casa which were totally abandoned by the state.

64 ORGANIZING MUTUAL SOLIDARITY Liberate Section of End the Debt! Decolonize! number depicting the staggering Rico! Puerto by Mar í a. Photo by Hurricane caused of deaths Delano. Pablo ORGANIZING MUTUAL SOLIDARITY 65 withholding of aid by federal authorities, of the displacement of our people through abusive colonial governor, are great examples and No comemos austeridad, “We don’t eat policies like opportunity zones and community of a transformation that’s possible when austerity,” a reminder that neoliberal politics block grants. the material conditions and the will of the have a daily effect on people’s ability to people come together. The fissures created cover their basic needs. We also developed The #rickyrenuncia movement in the summer after catastrophes in the management a cantastoria, a sung picture storytelling of 2019 where hundreds of thousands of Puerto of emergencies by the state can create performance that showed and spoke of the Ricans took to the streets, and through direct conditions for breaks in the hegemony of our catastrophe and disaster capitalism brought action and confrontation with the repressive colonial state and permit for new structures upon by the management after the natural forces of the state made then-governor Ricardo of governance and power. These are much disaster. Rosselló step down, was the culmination of needed exercises of autonomous action and a process of rejecting the politics of disaster organizing, which inform practices and ideas The highlight of our artistic projects in capitalism, and the total abandonment of the of future alternatives to the organization of the response to the Hurricane was the End the people by the state after María. Thousands of state and society. Debt! Decolonize! Liberate Puerto Rico! Scroll pages of chats between the governor and other project, which tells a story of struggle and government officials were revealed including Current and future possibilities for self- resistance to U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico homophobic comments and total disdain for governance must be grounded in a culture of and its diaspora. The hand-illustrated scroll the people of Puerto Rico; including mocking mutual solidarity to generate and nurture new is over 170 feet long and 3 inches wide of the dead after the hurricane. It felt like people and existing structures in society, engaging in continuous moving images, performed with were finally able to channel the pent-up rage a praxis of autonomous action and collective an original song by the theater group Papel Papel Machete performing the cantastoria Solidaridad y of the abuses we have endured. Artists of all agency. As our people recover from numerous Machete. The visual art and performance Sobrevivencia para Nuestra Liberación at PAM (Proyecto backgrounds and identities were front-and- earthquakes and aftershocks, the network of piece was created by artists from AgitArte and Apoyo Mutuo Mariana) - Humacao. Photo courtesy of center and instrumental in the shifting of mutual aid centers was once again ready to Papel Machete, in collaboration with Estefanía Jorge Díaz Ortiz. consciousness throughout the islands in favor act immediately and meet the needs of their Rivera, Crystal Clarity, Rachel Schragis, and of the governors’ resignation. These were communities. Using a group chat created after Emily Simons. This project was also part of state in an interview that they were going to highlighted by visual arts, performances, and Hurricane María, the CAMs have identified the When We Fight, We Win! Arts & Culture Tour. have to open the ports up so bottled water the popular dance party perreo combativo on needs, located sources for aid and supplies, All of these projects were an integral part of could get to the supermarkets. In other words, the streets in one of the most important and coordinated brigades and the distribution the mutual aid work where artists organized they had to allow merchandise to get to the intersectional movements of our times. of aid, and communicated with the Puerto to counter the government’s messaging of stores so people could continue buying those Rican diaspora with what and where to send “normalization” on the island when people same necessities, which were sent for them New challenges are faced now with a new support. This kind of rapid response and were still suffering. as aid. He never spoke of actually releasing governor who represents a continuation of coordination would not have been possible the immense amounts of aid—thousands of the same politics of the preceding governor as without the network Red de Apoyo Mutuo cargo containers containing basic necessities proven by the crisis of unsafe schools after the (Network of Mutual Support) formed after for survival—sitting in the same ports of entry earthquakes, the lack of aid to both hurricane María. Functioning from the lens of mutual The government has lost its credibility with the awaiting inspections and distribution. It and earthquake victims, and the normalization aid and solidarity, the network is another Puerto Rican people. This has been a growing became clear that the concern of the colonial of the social and economic crisis we are living living example that the Puerto Rican people sentiment towards a colonial and federal government and federal authorities were with in. This is the reality that will continue to are organized and, with proper resources and government, which has submitted people to the profit margins of U.S. corporations, and not worsen if we continue to be governed by the autonomy, the most equipped to support each extreme austerity measures while they—the the welfare of the people in need. Fiscal Control Board and treated as a colony of other. political class and the powerful economic the United States, which has condemned us to interests of Wall Street—continue to find new This is a metaphor for the whole management serving the interests of the United States at the ways to extract any possible resource from our of the catastrophe. An opportunity for disaster expense of the people of Puerto Rico. Jorge Díaz Ortiz is co-founder of AgitArte and a islands. capitalists to make money from the misery founding member of Papel Machete. He is a puppeteer, of the people of Puerto Rico through federal Nonetheless the exercises of self-governance, popular educator, and bicultural organizer with over 25 years of experience. I still remember hearing U.S. General Richard funds, energy contracts, food and water, which or as we called them ejercicios de Kim, in charge of the relief and military was paid for and never delivered; the shutting independencia, experienced in the CAMs operations in Puerto Rico after the hurricane, down of public schools; and the facilitation and when people came together to oust an

66 ORGANIZING MUTUAL SOLIDARITY ORGANIZING MUTUAL SOLIDARITY 67 The fissures created after catastrophes in the management of emergencies by the state can create conditions for breaks in the hegemony of our colonial state and permit for new structures of governance and power.

Storm Diagram Artwork by Emily Simons, courtesy of AgitArte.

68 ORGANIZING MUTUAL SOLIDARITY 69 “a reminder that neoliberal politics have a daily effect on people’s ability to cover their basic needs”

No comemos austeridad / We don’t eat austerity

Artwork by José “Primo” Hernández, courtesy of AgitArte.

Aquí servimos solidaridad / Here we serve solidarity

Artwork by Javier Maldonado O’Farrill, courtesy of AgitArte.

70 ORGANIZING MUTUAL SOLIDARITY 71 Somos mas y no tenemos miedo / We are more, and we are not afraid

Artwork created by Estefanía Rivera Cortés for Papel Machete as part of the #rickyrenuncia movement in 2019. Image courtesy of AgitArte.

Si el gobierno aguanta las ayudas, el pueblo las libera / If the government withholds aid, the people will free it

Artists from AgitArte and Papel Machete and those in solidarity with Puerto Rico create artwork and posters that provide a counter narrative to contest the dominant and inaccurate media coverage of Puerto Rico and other working- class struggles around the world. Image by Estefanía Rivera Cortés for AgitArte.

72 ORGANIZING MUTUAL SOLIDARITY 73 IT HAS BEEN 46 YEARS since Joseph Beuys who are likelier to embrace abstract notions published his manifesto of Social Sculpture, I of what art is and its potential, before the AM SEARCHING FOR FIELD CHARACTER (1973), art world establishment. We see this in the stating straight-off: growth of the creative placemaking field. Within communities, institutions, and the Only on condition of a radical widening halls of government that we imagine as the Maps Not of definition will it be possible for art defacto shapers of our social sculpture, artists and activities related to art to provide have been creating meaningful, tangible, and evidence that art is now the only measurable progress. This has been the focus evolutionary-revolutionary power. of A Blade of Grass’ initiatives since conceiving Only art is capable of dismantling the of the Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art, repressive effects of a senile social now entering its sixth year, and basis of its ManifestosKathryn McKinney system that continues to totter along the newly released online guide to Municipal-Artist deathline: to dismantle in order to build A Partnerships, a free resource for artists and SOCIAL ORGANISM AS A WORK OF ART. city agencies to understand the stakes and opportunities of this work. This move to understand society itself and social transformation as works of art has Developed as a “relationship guide,” inspired countless artists since, and even Municipal-Artist Partnerships emphasizes before (Mierle Laderman Ukeles wrote her the relational, not transactional, quality of own Maintenance Art Manifesto 1969! over this artwork. The guide offers artists and five years prior.) Despite nearly 50 years their counterparts within a city agency of demonstration to the contrary, socially valuable insight through tools, examples, engaged art—an umbrella term for many and exercises designed to get each to see the characterizations of shaping relationships work through the perspective of the other, and society as a form of art—faces routine test their assumptions and understanding, questioning and even belligerence by the art and enter these partnerships with better world establishment on behalf of the product awareness of their dynamics, requirements, obsessed art market. Artists and administrators and potential. Within these arrangements, embody the cognitive dissonance of pushing there are no passive “viewers” to the work, the socio-political value of artists, while only collaborators within it. The outcomes asking themselves quietly, “what can art really can be sizable, whether it’s transforming the do?” We’ve seen this pushing of ideas from landscape and public space of a city, healing the top down, effectively art campaign-style and moving beyond trauma and prejudice “messaging” of progressive ideas passively within systems, diverting youth from prison, through aesthetic experience, fails to produce optimizing residents’ access and experience action and political change simply because it with city services, or the wellbeing of those fails to demand it of the viewer, and fails first to providing them. With each successful instance demand it of the artist. of sculpting a more sustainable, equitable, and just society, audiences are transformed However, in the world outside of the into artists and political agents themselves. international art circuit, socially engaged As Beuys continues in his manifesto, “This Community members tour the community garden at World Garden Commons tended by Growing artists and the incorporation of artists into most modern art discipline – Social Sculpture/ Together during the Welcoming Week celebrations. The event included a meal prepared with produce from the garden, garden tours and local entertainment. World Garden Commons at Rabanus Park is policy initiatives and governmental agencies, Social Architecture will only reach fruition the pilot site of The Fargo Project, in Fargo, North Dakota. Photo by Amu Production, 2016. and within their communities, is gaining when every living person becomes a creator, traction where it matters most. Ironically, it’s a sculptor, or architect of the social organism. sometimes policy wonks and bureaucrats Only then […] would democracy be fully

74 75 realized.” If mandating that everyone must be an artist feels a bit undemocratic, then maybe the more consensual version of social sculpture is that anyone who wants to be is an Art is a seemingly low stakes space artist.

that invites imagination, empathy, and If you’re an artist, social engagement If you’re interested in could be considered another dimension the radical potential action implemented over time, with to work with: from 2D to 3D, to no longer representative, but reality. If you’re not an of Municipal-Artist the right context and community; artist, but have an idea for some project that Partnerships to transform manifests in experimentation and boundary the stakes rise until they become real pushing to effect change to our institutions society, visit: and landscapes, maybe you are an artist? world changes. Laurie Rojas points out in a 2010 Chicago Art Magazine essay, “…the problem is not the lack www.municipal-artist.org of conversation, it is the lack of a body politic that has the ability to mobilize for progressive social transformation…” This is precisely the aim of A Blade of Grass. We believe art, as a proposition, allows for distinct and important The site is free and publicly available, methods of change. A seemingly low stakes created by A Blade of Grass and space that invites imagination, empathy, Animating Democracy, a program of and action implemented over time, with the Americans for the Arts, and made right context and community; the stakes rise possible with support from Our until they become real world changes. With Town, the National Endowment each socially engaged art work, each artist for the Arts’ creative placemaking embedded within a sanitation department or grants program, and the Emily Hall police department, forcing the needle on more Tremaine Foundation. Designed and equitable, sustainable power dynamics and developed by Partner & Partners. systems, the next art world is being built. It will include beautiful things, and tragic things, and well designed things, but these things will not exist to make all the ugly, disturbing, and poorly designed aspects of our society more palatable. It will replace them.

Kathryn McKinney is the Head of Content & Communications at A Blade of Grass.

My Park, My Pool, My City is a three-year artistic residency in partnership with the Austin’s Parks and Recreation Aquatics Division which began in 2017, activating and amplifying civic engagement around the future of Austin’s city pools. Photo by Jonica Moore.

76 MAPS NOT MANIFESTOS MAPS NOT MANIFESTOS 77 For Techno-Colored Girls Who Imagined Afrofutures When Black History Wasn’t Enough

Li Sumpter

BLACK SCI-FI WRITER SAMUEL DELANY SAYS, “images of tomorrow,” are what 1 black people need most. Powerful black images are the seeds of transformative Octavia E. Butler says it is our destiny black stories—stories black folks can identify with, believe in, and heal through. to, “take root among the stars.” Imaginative, authentic narratives about black lives and radical afrofutures disrupt stereotypes and shift perceptions. We know a story holds power when we want to become a part of it, engage with its characters, remember the journey through our Octavia believed humanity’s destiny is our choice, by design. I strive own eyes and experiences. Such stories are immersive by nature. To these alchemical to be in the same orbit with fellow humans who hold similar hopes ends and technological means, black artists and storytellers working in 3-D design for the future of the planet in the face of urgent ecological crisis. When and immersive technology are leveling up on tools for social change and our souls’ it comes to my art and approach to collaboration, this alignment is survival. essential to ensure the growth of my practice and its impact within my As we witness the turn of the decade, many projects emerging from the nexus of art arts ecosystem. I try to surround myself with other artists, storytellers, and technology offer a glimpse into the ever-evolving terrain of art and social practice. makers, dreamers, designers who understand the power of myth These projects explore new strategies for creative resistance while redefining what and radical imagination. These symbiotic connections and collective art and story can look, feel, and sound like across multiple platforms. This includes resources exist as a creative network activated across disciplines 1. "Our" refers to innovative work from multidisciplinary fields like digital humanities, immersive and diverse communities. What follows is a snapshot of black stars "Earthseed," what storytelling, design justice, and afrofuturism. constellating in my cosmos, a few glowing nodes in my network I’d like Octavia Butler called to shout out and show some love. The epicenter of my multiverse is humanity in Parable rooted in my hometown of Philly, Planet Earth. of the Sower.

78 79 The Colored2 Girls Museum FIRST TIME EVER I SAW YOUR FACE

When it comes to holding safe and sacred space for black girls and women, The Colored Girls Museum (TCGM) in Germantown, Philadelphia has made this Her die- hard mission. TCGM is a 130-year old historic home that has been so lovingly and purposefully transformed into a public space of community ritual in “protection, praise, and grace of the ordinary colored girl.” Under the leadership of Vashti Dubois, the Museum uplifts images and stories of black and brown girls and women in ways the world and our own communities of color have rarely seen. Filmmaker M. Asli Dukan uses the stories of five In 2019, I was an exhibiting artist in a group show TCGM co-curated for the Leeway generations of her Foundation at Moore College of Art and Design, where I also teach curatorial matrilineal legacy to studies and afrofuturism. This year, I’ll be working with Vashti and a Philly-based transmit the experience of healing as a form of The First Time Ever I national team on an immersive tech portrait project called liberation in The Healing Saw Your Face. Augmented reality, green screen, and 360 volumetric video are Box. Image courtesy of among the tools that will bring portrait artists, their subjects, and their stories to M. Asli Dukan. life for Museum visitors of all ages and abilities.

M. Asli Dukan THE HEALING BOX

M. Asli Dukan lives and creates in Philly where her practice is based. Her current project The Healing Box is an interactive, multimedia project inspired by the sci-fi story Dune and five generations of voices from Dukan’s own matrilineal legacy from the 1800s Caribbean to 21st century United States. The Healing Box turns a device intended to inflict pain and trauma into a tool of remembrance and healing. Through “a multicolored light display and a series of sound designed, Executive Director and audio montages” participants are enveloped in a sensory experience of survival, founder Vashti DuBois sits resilience, and memory recall. This project is part one from Dukan’s forthcoming in front of The Colored Girls Maria Trilogy. The second and third parts address “themes of work and love, and Museum. The museum honors add video and virtual reality to their forms.” the stories, experiences, and history of ordinary Colored I first met Asli when she was shooting for her documentary on afrofuturism some Girls. Image courtesy of The Dune Colored Girls Museum. years ago. We share a blerdy passion for the mythology, and are both mining and re-membering personal ancestry through speculative artifacts and interactive installation. Most recently we’ve crossed paths in a popular maker space in Philly called NextFab Studios. Utilizing new technologies to bring lost and forgotten, untold and still unfolding stories into “mixed” or multiple realities connects Vashti, Asli, and I, and our respective projects, within this same arts ecosystem. 2. To Vashti DuBois the term "colored" means, "the act of coloring—the verb itself refers to how Creating immersive narrative experiences is a viable path we’ve all chosen to the world consistently takes its crayons and colors black women and girls whatever they expand the possibilities of our work, and the radius of our impact in Philly and want. They color us too loud. Color us as too aggressive, as needy not in need of protection. beyond. In the process, we’re also transcending the limitations of our current skill They just color us. And then the colored girl will take that same crayon and begin to color sets and scopes of knowledge. herself and her people."

80 FOR TECHNO-COLORED GIRLS FOR TECHNO-COLORED GIRLS 81 Wangechi Mutu THE NEWONES, WILL FREE US

When sharing her inspiration for the current portrait project at TCGM, Vashti recalled a visit to a local Philadelphia institution where she saw paintings of wealthy white men hung high on the walls. Visitors had to “look up” to them upon entering a room, creating an immediate dynamic of power, respect, and, even, intimidation. Vashti’s memory made me think of the recent work of one of the brightest stars of modern mythmaking I’ve ever had the pleasure to encounter.

Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu is making new myths and monuments that humans of color (and the rest of humanity) can (and literally, must) look up to. Across many world mythologies, the black woman represents the Creatrix of life and symbol of Mother Nature. Through her groundbreaking façade commissioned by The Met entitled, The NewOnes, will free Us, Mutu conjures spells of power and protection, hope and liberation for women across time, space, and art history. Informed by ancient caryatids and supported by 3-D design, these larger-than-life female figures belong to a speculative future imagined through Mutu’s mind’s eye. Making space for the lost and displaced, The NewOnes hold high court and stand watch for “us” in the real world, from what is easily considered the most iconic institution of arts and culture across the globe.

I first met Wangechi while working at the New Museum during the run of Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anakulapo-Kuti. In the almost 20 years since our paths first crossed, Mutu remains a Morning Star to me—always shining a light of hope, pointing black folks, women, and the archetypal Other, towards True North. If our destiny is to take root among the stars, Mutu is leading the way in quantum leaps and bounds. Her thoughtful execution of The Met commission elegantly succeeds in subverting recurring images and motifs of women in service and submission in classical art and architecture that spans millennia. While The NewOnes stand as temporary monuments to the strength, resilience, and regality of the female body, they also speak proudly and loudly to humanity’s urgent call to save us from extinction and planetary destruction. Photos by Garrett Ziegler

Wangechi Mutu’s sculpture, The Seated III, 2019, overlooks from the façade of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo by Allison Meier. Edited and cropped from original.

82 FOR TECHNO-COLORED GIRLS FOR TECHNO-COLORED GIRLS 83 Li Sumpter GRAFFITI IN THE GRASS

Like Vashti, Asli, and Wangechi, by design, I choose to put girls and women of color at the center of my stories about the art of survival, a concept at the core of my multidisciplinary practice. Roxi RedMoon, a young heroine of African and Indigenous descent, is the heart of Graffiti in the Grass, my immersive transmedia project. Graffiti utilizes escape room, graphic novel, mixtape and mobile app Artist Li Sumpter leads an to connect participants/users to Roxi’s existential struggle and her quantum Escape Artist Initiative workshop, quest through time and space. This story and my other MythMedia and Escape a community-based project Artist projects are strongly informed by my doctoral research on apocalyptic exploring the art of survival and creative resilience. Photo courtesy narratives and archetypal patterns recurring across media landscapes, the natural of Li Sumpter. environment and human consciousness.3

The Apocalypse Complex (aka Sarah Connor Syndrome) is one such pattern and pathology. I describe it as an archetypal algorithm of birth, death, and rebirth that influences psychic life and material reality. Like many living in her time (c. 2045), Roxi RedMoon suffers from anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation brought on by the shadow of the Apocalypse Complex. While facing unthinkable challenges immersive story elements from Graffiti in the Grass in The Colored Girls Museum’s of ecological and societal collapse, Roxi is also charged with finding her missing physical and virtual spaces. This collaboration has granted me access to an sister and saving her community from cosmic annihilation. But first, Roxi must dig experimental platform equipped with state-of-the-art resources unlocking the deep to overcome the shadow of her own soul before she can begin the journey to power to push my speculative story beyond the realms of myth and media and help the ones she loves. into real-world dimensions.

In this apocalyptic multiverse, black and Indigneous women are not only the Who speaks for us? Who tells our stories? Who builds our worlds? Who will heroines of the human race, they are also the saviors of their own precious souls. remember us when we’re gone? I strive to be in good company or at least in close Project participants experience Roxi’s journey while also learning practical, orbit, with the likes of Vashti, Asli, Wangechi and others asking and answering holistic survival skills for mind, body, and spirit. Vashti has invited me to playtest similar questions at the crossroads of art, race, access, and technology. Wangechi says the characters of her story are, “activists and environmentalists who present a different approach for the future, because none of the amazing works of art and language and theater that we’ve created throughout the history of humanity will matter if we’re not here as a species.” Facts!

No matter race, gender, faith, or discipline, artists, storytellers, designers, educators, and activists engaged in visionary, generative social justice work are all connected through independent acts of world building. Whether we know it or not, we are in simultaneous co-creation of the “big picture,” the next new reality. We are collectively making new myths and Techno-colored constellations of An interactive, transmedia image and media that show us just how dark or luminous humanity’s futures can project, Graffiti in the be. The field of imagination is both the frontline and ground zero in the battle for Grass promotes creative our brightest tomorrow. We must choose our tools of change wisely and always resistance and community with hope in our hearts. Our destiny is our choice, by design. readiness through an apocalyptic myth set in future Philadelphia. Image courtesy of Li Sumpter. 3. My dissertation Apocalyptic Soul: Seeing Through Image in the Age of End Time further explores these concepts in mythology and depth psychology.

84 FOR TECHNO-COLORED GIRLS FOR TECHNO-COLORED GIRLS 85 Gratitude Leadership

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