Skip to content or view screen version

Creative activist roadshow in east-west collaboration

AA EYFA | 30.04.2006 17:44 | Art and Activism Caravan 2006 | Culture | Education

The Art and Activism Caravan is a border crossing project, starting early June, travelling for 3 months from Greece via Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina and Hungary to the eco-activist gathering Ecotopia in Slovakia. Its aim is to support and connect youth, campaign, community and activist groups, their actions and campaigns with creative forms of activism. The participants will share skills in the field of video, creative writing, music and dance, sculpturing, street performance, drawing and painting, samba and screen printing.

Groups involved in the AA Caravan are EYFA (European Youth For Action), Candida TV (video collective, Italy), Rhythms of Resistance (samba), The Mischief Makers (creative activist collective, Nottingham), Undercurrents (UK video collective), Karahaber (video news network, Turkey), Loesje (creative writing), Rebel Clown Army and VideA (video collective, Balkans).

The local organisations and groups hosting the project are Medsos (Greece), Bitola Youth Forum (Macedonia), Mjaft (Albania), Plagus_M (Serbia & Montenegro), In Stage (Serbia & Montenegro), Kulturanova (Serbia & Montenegro), Tuzla Live (Bosnia & Herzegovina), Uruk (Bosnia & Herzegovina) and ZoFi and Valley of Arts (Hungary) and Ecotopia (Slovakia). For more information on the host groups click here. The artists taking part in the project come from Norway, Turkey, Italy, The Netherlands, UK, Ukraine, Germany and Armenia.

Links: AA Caravan website | Map of route | The host groups | The artists

Wikipedia on: Balkans | Greece | Macedonia | Albania | Montenegro | Serbia | Bosnia Herzegovina | Hungary | Slovakia

Local Indymedias: Athens | Belgrade | Croatia | Hungary

Art Activism Links: Design for Social Change | My Dads Strip Club | Northern Arts Tactical Offensive | Movement of the Imagination | The Church of Stop Shopping | The YES Men | The Lab of Insurrectionary Imagination | YoMango | Space Hijackers | videoactivism.org (everything for the video activist)

Background Links: ZNet Balkanwatch (Background articles on the political situation in the Balkans + lots of links) | Transitions Online (Online newsletter covering politics in the Balkans and wider region) | Maknews.com (Macedonian independent news agency) | Abolishing the Borders from Below (anarchist magazine focused around Eastern Europe) | Role of Women in The Balkans War (links) | Balkansnet.org (Balkans anti-war and human rights resources) | Our target is peace (The centre for peace in the Balkans)



What is the AA Caravan?

The AA Caravan Caravan is a border crossing project travelling from Greece (early June) via Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina and Hungary to the annual activist environmentalist gathering Ecotopia in Slovakia (August 6th). The main aim is to support and connect local youth groups, their actions and campaigns with the power of Activist Art. The Caravan artists/trainers are specialized in different fields of art like video shooting & editing, creative writing, music and dance, sculpturing, street theater, drawing and painting. They'll visit host activist/youth groups for a week, to give workshops together with local artists. Participants can be local activists, art students, anybody interested in artivism. Next to this, local artists will travel with the Caravan to the neighbouring country, to join the workshops there and strengthen regional activist and artistic networks. The artists and participants will together brainstorm about ways to put art and activism into practice, using local and international themes. Workshops last up to five days, working toward public creative activism outcome(s) in the end of the week.

Caravan aims

The main objectives of this Caravan project are to


  • promote the use of art and creativity in activism and campaigning
  • create/strengthen the link between artists, art students, and activists
  • strengthen regional and international, east-west cooperation among activists and artists
  • support local groups in their campaigns and activities
  • involve more youth in social, creative activism
  • use art as tool for social inclusion and political participation

Caravan themes

The Caravan first and foremost wants to support local political, social activist actions, campaigns. Participants can bring in issues during the first day of the workshops. In this way the topics worked with in the workshops can be very diverse. Next to this, the Caravan wants to bring in one or more overall themes, as theme that the Caravan finds interesting to prepare and discuss with the participants. These themes can be Art and activism itself, anti-consumerism.

Interested??

Are you interested to participate in the workshops, or join them, just check out the route and the hosts. Please contact the hosts if you have any querys as to what´s going on, and if would like to share your skills, what ever they may be...The caravan is a mad mix of creativity already and it can only get powerful with all our efforts of protest.

AA EYFA
- e-mail: eyfa@eyfa.org

Comments

Hide the following 10 comments

Movement of the imagination is a SWP front organization

07.05.2006 23:19

Well it was last time I looked and Noel the guy behind it was as arrogant as the rest of those SWP fuckwits? Has it changed? If it has then OK, otherwise I would question it being on the front page of IMC – Noel are you still a SWP closed minded clone?

question?


Word to the wise

08.05.2006 09:28

Warning: Jugendorganisation Eurasia is National Bolshevik front, and were present at this 'Eco-n-action' event last year, featuring some of the same groups. We have already has serious shit with the PGA newtwork for flirting with fascists - see  http://antisystemic.org/pga/Choice_Of_Fascists.htm

Asim,
WEZ

Eco-n-action - 09.11.2005, 15:07:27

Gast Weil's sicher noch nicht alle gesehen haben, schieb ich die Kongressankündigung noch mal nach oben.
Dazu vielleicht Beispiele aus dem Programm: Die Ukraine im Prozess der Globalisierung [Leonid Savin, Jugendorganisation Eurasia, Ukraine]; WTO und Aserbaidschan - Realitäten und Perspektiven [Babir Mehdiyev, Baku, Aserbaidschan]; Aktueller Stand der WTO-Verhandlungen [Chris Methmann, Attac, Hamburg]; Samba als Widerstandsform - (bisschen) Theorie und (viel) Praxis [Rhythms of Resistance, Berlin]; WTO und Freihandel für EinsteigerInnen [Jörg Erdmann, BUNDjugend, Flensburg]; Konzerne für EinsteigerInnen [Cornelia Heydenreich, Germanwatch, Berlin]; und viele bunte Aktionsworkshops...
mehr unter www.eco-n-action.de

WEZ


Questions

08.05.2006 18:28

This is the centre feature? Tell me is your 'movement' just made up of middle class glove trotters and wannabe media people? ( see also mayday and the shitty thieving 'party' scene )

I'm sure it will be very 'nice' though. Arts Council grant anybody?

There's no shortage of wankers with video cameras at demos or ,artists, mostly thinking social change is putting on druggy parties ( and no academic gibshit conferences ) whilst yogurt weaving round the globe etc. etc. There is a shortage of everybody else ( working class people for one thing ). I hope you are more diverse but based on past experiences I very much doubt it.

You do sound like a bunch of hippies! But I do hope you won't be burning up too much diesel on your travels!

We've lost.

Alan Wallcott


What a load of bollocks these comments

08.05.2006 18:55

Eh, this project doesn't seem to have anything to do the Movement of the Imagination, the feature just links to it as an other example of an art and activism initiative. Secondly it has got absolutely nothing to do with 'Jugendorganisation Eurasia'...

Just because some groups that they're gonna meet were at some event where they met some other groups who where at the same event that were blah blah blah... what a load of bollocks. Of course this project has no affiliation with fascist groups...

???


same old

08.05.2006 19:46

Alan wrote:

There's no shortage of wankers with video cameras at demos or ,artists, mostly thinking social change is putting on druggy parties ( and no academic gibshit conferences ) whilst yogurt weaving round the globe etc. etc. There is a shortage of everybody else ( working class people for one thing ). I hope you are more diverse but based on past experiences I very much doubt it. You do sound like a bunch of hippies! But I do hope you won't be burning up too much diesel on your travels!

Yeah right Alan. It's always so easy to slag off what others do, isn't it? These people actually work on others forms of activism and broadening the spectrum of this so called 'social movement' instead of being stuck in the same old cliches like yourself. Grow up.

an activist


The Wheat from the Chaff

14.05.2006 18:24

its true that there are people who represent the arts/activism movement badly, but any social scene, especially activism is going to have those kinds of people jumbled in amongst people who are giving momentum and vision to a movement dedicated to genuine positive social change.
This caravan is a group of young people who are lifting themselves out of the very cliches that have been posted against them (highly unconstuctive), by DOING SOMETHING about it.
here is an example of people who appear to be very active, well trained and eager to take what they've learned on a local level and use it conscienciously on an international level. these people clearly stand out amongst reams of space wasters.
You cannot criticise middleclass, and then criticise arts council funding, where are people going to every get money without falling into another cliche in that case,- next you'll be saying 'bloody tin shakers'?
middleclass? not a crime.. sometimes it takes people with the means and the opportunities.
wannabe media? this is a media website remember? documentation is important.
hippies? since when do creative people with social conscience bear any likeness to your parents on drugs listening to the mamas and papas!
globetrotters? hardly, jus because they're from all over, doesn't make them air-mile junkies. the caravan seems focused and well connected, and its only responsible on a project like this to use people from various backgrounds, in terms of nationality and training. the host groups appear to be influential in their areas, exciting and receptive.
I am truly excited to follow the caravans progress on indymedia and through the eyfa website, people need to start responding to these political issues by empowering people to respond in a creative productive way, that encourages unity, as this appears to be doing
this is a very powerful artform, when used wisely,
i trust this caravan of misfits though.

good luck

a misfit.

Samyouwell


professional activists justification for life-styleism

14.05.2006 22:59

For me, this article is more an expression for professional activists trying to make out their way of life would be the one and only solution to society's problems and an arrogancy that everybody would have to assimilate their lifestyle to their approven model. I don't agree with this analysis or the practical outcome of this philosophy.
As exiting and entertaining this art caravan might be for the participants, it seems to be pretty irrelevant to me, apart as a way of making connections with other progressive, libertarian groups but that is no reason to be advertised on indymedia, particular if it is organised by and for a closed group.
In conclusion, I am pretty disappointed that this article - as well researched and linked up as it be, makes the middle column, as for me, this way of promoting one particular way of life, seems to be more repressive than liberating.
I do think art has a place as a way of getting politics across, but in an inclusive way, but not in this promotional style, it seems to me more as a justification for some elite activists to travel the world whilstsecuring for themselves self-centred holiday entertainment..
Well, good luck anyways.

ab


well this sparked off a discushern that alwase happens...

15.05.2006 13:10

yes most of the discussion is coming from life style activists... the problem of undead vampires, more working class than you... making money... profesheralisam...

A positive point: the problem of all the video cameras at demos its a good argument FOR the caravan, as people with cameras generally have no idea what to do with the images - I for one am setting out to pass on the skills and connect them to the global network so that THEY can do something useful with the images... otherwise I agree with the posters it is dispiriting to see all those cameras and then to no that it is all just life style - NOTHING will come of them - so get off your ASSES and organize a skills caravan and make the world you wont rather than gassing about it on IMC... the revolution will only happen if we stop wanking about and get real - could add the word professional there just to wind up a minority of life style activists (:

Skill sharing to build real alternatives is the way to go, will this caravan do that? It might.

Hamish
mail e-mail: hamish@undercurrents.org
- Homepage: http://www.undercurrents.org/hamish


the proof of the pudding...

18.05.2006 16:37

Criticism: "It's an advertisement."
For what? A bunch of people blagged funding for a trip across Europe. Why advertising it? The trip takes place whether we know about it or not, and funding usually doesn't rely on the numbers who participated in a project.

Criticism: "arrogance."
"ab" worries about the arrogance of the project, that the caravan would force their lifestyle on everybody else. What if it is the other way round? So that it is not the caravan people who teach the "backwards" Eastern Europeans about how to do creative politics, but the people they meet during their trip who teach them something? An educational project for western activists, enlarging their horizons? And the workshops could be a present that you bring your hosts?

Criticism: "irrelevant"
That caravan is not the revolution. But the model is interesting: Funding from the arts council, maybe the European Union (Youth education? Democratic participation? EU-enlargement?) sponsors a bunch of activists to go out and make new connections. The proof of the pudding will be the eating. Will the caravan remain an exciting holiday for a handfull of activists who are savvy, connected and priviledged enough to get access to funding? Or will it spawn new connections, link in with existing social movements - euromayday, precarity, migration...? This depends on the attitude of those who participate.
Should indymedia only report about accomplished projects, things that are fully successful, well integrated, in tune with the activist calendar? Or do we have use for inspiration from different angles - from the art world for the art of fundraising, from eyfa for the balancing act between reformist institution and activist infrastructure etc?

"The proof of the pudding..."
The caravan website doesn't say much about the political background. No explicit connection to the G8 in Russia this year, for instance, nothing about the issue of migration from Eastern Europe to Western Europe and the legal, economical, cultural, political changes this brings about. Nothing about how art can be beneficial to social movements, or how the most radical arty idea can get trapped in the art galeries of this world if it is not connected to wider political issues, if it doesn't transgress the boundaries of "culture". It just talks about the joys of art in activism, brainstorming and networking. Nothing about how the participating artists are making decisions either - have they simply been "commissioned" to do a job? Or was the project developed on a collaborative basis? Are the "artist-activist skills" going to be put into practice in public interventions?

Yes, from what has been made public, this project seems rather conventional. But who knows what's behind the smooth surface of the website. I would give them the benefit of the doubt.


jablon


Do you consider this creative writing?

19.12.2006 13:13

[I hope you will consider what I wish to share, and tell me if a bias sets in and thwarts your interest or gets you hot and bothered to the point that you would recommend censoring me.]

Consider the following riddle as a creative way in which to have dialogue without stirring up fierce disagreements. So, bear with me and see if you know the answer to the riddle.


Here are the clues to the riddle:

1. Those who discover the keys to this prophecy will open ears to hear and eyes to see.

2. The enlightened will shorten the days of the tribulation written herein by revealing the mystery of that written on the inside and that written on the outside.

3. “The nations were astonished and abhorred by what had been hidden behind the veil and kept secret from the foundations of this earth, yet they found no reason to be vengeful. They were quick to forgive all who confessed that they neither held the keys to the kingdom of God, which could have shortened the days of the tribulation written herein, nor the keys to the kingdoms of men, which have prolonged the days of the tribulation written herein.”

4. The oppressor will be unable to prolong the days of the tribulation written herein, because he did not hold the keys to the “kingdom of God”.

5. The suppressor will be unable to shut what will open, because he would not open what he kept shut in the kingdoms of men.

6. Let those who were last in the kingdoms of men, bring forth the things written herein, and let those who were first in the kingdoms of men show us worthy dissent.

7. Who will forward the judgment, who will silently sit by, and who will be unable to do either?



If you think you know what the riddle is referring to, stretch your thoughts with the next riddle, then come back and tell me the answer to both riddles. Whoever answers first is the winner.

You will find the next riddle here:

 https://israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/5807/index.php

[This writing contains one page with 373 words, 1,725 characters without spaces, 2,104 characters with spaces, 14 paragraphs, and 46 lines. Reject copies with discrepancies.]

yezbok drahcir
- Homepage: http://https://israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/5807/index.php