deconcrete

CELLTEXTS [Ines & Eyal Weizman, 2008] is an archive of texts, love letters, philosophical statements, letters to mothers, songs, treatises, political manifestos, and novels… written from incarcerated dissidents all around the world. The library uses the writer’s time spent in prison (1 day to 45 years) to organise an amalgam of published knowledge. This makes the cell be read as a space enhancing mental freedom:

< […] The cells are thus revealed as sites of intellectual production, marking the limit condition of writing. The collection is assembled in recognition that spatial confinement and isolation may induce a process of creative, imaginative, sometimes spiritual, cultural production. The individual’s impulse to survive through texts, through reclaiming her own voice against the imposition of others, creates an autarkic realm in which practices of dissidence, political and personal, could be reinstated. Commissioned and designed by and for the state, prison cells acquire a potential subversive content, becoming critical spatial apparatuses. Paradoxically, imprisonment emerges as an active practice of citizenship a mechanism of political opposition that call for a confrontation or intolerance with certain forms of government.

[…]

For many prisoners, the prison could offer a period of reflection, scholarship and education as well as a resonating chamber for political dissent. Regis Debray described the Prison as “the dissident’s second university”. Antonio Gramsci was forced to write in code to bypass the constraints of the prison and its censorship. Ezra Pound learns from the Chinese Encyclopedia which he smuggled into his Pisan cage. For Antonio Negri it was the routines of the prison that represented the principal form of punishment in a capitalist society. Auguste Blanqui formulated in the middle of the 19th century, a detailed guide for the armed uprising of the revolutionary multitudes which included sketches and street maps with exact details of barricades. Many writers are fascinated with insects and animals coming into their prison cells. […] >

[Excerpt from Ines & Eyal Weizman’s statement. Read full text]

In the same line, Architecture and the Paradox of Dissidence Symposium [London, 15-17 Nov 2012] will examine new forms of critical spatial practice within political regimes.

watch more videos of 15O_Madrid

[1> 15 October protests_Occupy Madrid by Urbano 2011] [2> Media covering 15 O protests in Rome by Mauro Magnani]

Men among a protesting crowd carry five female mannequins. They are the most visible women representation among the protesters. Because even during the Arab Spring protests extended to Sulaymaniyah, in Iraqi Kurdistan, public space is also segregated by gender. Citizens mainly complained against government corruption and lack of public services, such as electricity supply to homes. With her action in February 2011, Rozghar Mahmood Mustafa invited her female compatriots to openly join the area reserved for male protesters. The fact of simply standing behind the delimited area, where women are supposed to be protected by a cordon of ropes tied up to street lamps, only kills their desire of protesting more actively.  Plastic Women is part of the screening and discussion Northern Iraq_State of Unrest curated by Jason Waite at no.w.here, also featuring the work of Hiwa K and Reben Majeed. Waite looks at the various aesthetic strategies employed during the protests in the north of Iraq, how they obscure the distinction between art and activism, as well as form a critical position within the space of dissent. 

< Less than a week after President Mubarak of Egypt fell from power, the shockwaves of the Arab Spring swept across the levant and fomented what would become a tumultuous 60 days of continuous protest in Iraq. While endless news cycles were devoted to the uprisings in Egypt, Syria and Libya, those facing the security forces in the mainly Kurdish region in the north of Iraq were largely invisible. Mainly self-organized, these protests included a diversity of individuals that cut across social and religious divisions. Among those in the street were a number of artists contributing both body and voice as citizens and artistic practice to the heterogeneous movement. >

[Images> Plastic Women, 2011 by Rozghar Mahmood Mustafa, courtesy of Jason Waite.]

What if local farmers decide that their own home is more valuable than the expansion of a whole airport?

What if they refuse to accept millionaire compensations for their expropriated piece of land?

Then, their deep attachment to the ground makes investors develop in another direction. This phenomenon, known as stubborn-nail houses, depicts the right of a person to stay in his place; speculation may offer sums of money (as a way of politically correct bribery), but the last decision relies most of the times on the owner. Due to the frequent and intense protests of farmers trying to be evicted from their land, Narita airport planners in Tokyo could not but extend the landing runways to the opposite direction.

Narita opened in 1978, but it was not until last October that the second runway became operational in its full length. The red strips on the picture above show the interrupted dreams of the developers. The third runway is still not fully working, since farmers resist in the middle of it; no solution has been found yet for another way of expanding.  [source> Japantimes]

As Human Wu points out in his Tales of Nail Houses, featured in last issue of Monu Magazine, this and other cases demonstrated the tension between powers and the dramatic difference in the understanding of values of urbanism.

[1&2>interrupted landing runway at Narita Airport via virtualfunzones] [3> stubborn-nail farms at Narita Airport via googlemaps]

Depending on the order in which information is displayed, one could think that the recently raised 33rd largest statue of the world in the Polish town of Swiebodzin, could actually be a series about how it is being toppled. Or the other way around, as if the collapse of Sadam’s statue is shown like its erection.

Although Europe should walk more radically towards laicism, this new statue of Christ the King does not aim to defy other religions. Ranking the list of largest colossuses in the world after the Statue of Liberty (26th position) and before Rio de Janeiro’s own Christ (46th rank), it is not but a mere tourist attraction to place the town on the map of religious pilgrimage and bizarre leisure destinations.

However, it is astonishing that among the top-20 on the list, only Asian statues are to be found, either representing Buddhas and Avalokitesvaras everywhere in China and Japan, or Soviet-related monuments in Russia.

[image1> inverted series of raising Swiebodzin's statue; original photos via die Zeit] [image2> inverted series of razing Sadam's statue; original photos via Keshertalk] [image3> largest statues in the world via wikipedia]