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City of Glass (Graphic Novel) by Paul Auster

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Ruigoord

In 1972, a group of artists and writers squatted the village of Ruigoord. Because of planned expansion of the Amsterdam harbor the village had been almost emptied of inhabitants. In the same year that Ruigoord was squatted, the Amsterdam Balloon Company was created, organizing four kite-festivals around the city before finally settling down in the village. Many actions and festivals have since taken place in Ruigoord, tens of thousands of trees were planted, creating a beautiful forest on the empty plains surrounding the village. Around 2000, the authorities moved in. The forest was destroyed, though hundreds of green-front activists tried to save it from total destruction. Police forces arrived, surrounding the village with barbed wire fences. But in recent years the village has been legalized, and now Ruigoord is a green island surrounded by industries, paying a modest rent to the harbor.

During its many performance tours, the Amsterdam Balloon Company (ABC) created Temporary Autonomous Zones throughout Asia, Europe and Northern Africa; and, of course, in Ruigoord, which remains their home-ground, where many festivals still take place. When the Balloon Company performs everybody is a participant, borders between the public and the artists dissolve. In 1972, the ABC published the following statement: “The ABC is a floating movement in pursuit of freedom in airspace. Anybody who loves balloons, kites, birds or other soundless heavenly vehicles (sun, moon, earth, stars, comets etc.) can consider him/herself as a member.”

The Emerging Network of Temporary Autonomous Zones (TAZ) - Aja Waalwijk*

An Autonomous Zone or free cultural space is a topographically open space, be it landscape or building, a Freiraum or “free space” embedding counter-cultural traditions and values like the ones promoted by Provo (happenings), the Situationists (Power to the Imagination), Woodstock (pop-festivals), Rainbow Gatherings, Trance Parties (Boom), Squatting Movements (Christiania, Ruigoord, UfA-fabrik), Goan hippies, the Burning Man Festival, etc. Autonomous Zones, sometimes called Liminal Zones, are places of self-realization, places where ecstatic energies flower. Liminal Zones lie between defined areas without belonging to any of them, like door thresholds (limen in Latin). They have a topographical as well as a psychological connotation....

In Holland in the early ‘70s the Kite Company of Den Bosch and the Amsterdam Balloon Company introduced Kite Flying festivals. These took place at the four cardinal sides of the city of Amsterdam, open sandy areas where new city districts were planned. In the early days, no permission was required to inaugurate a festival in no-mans- land. Admittedly, free space is sparse in Holland. But even the sky is now no longer off-limits for those who endlessly invent regulations and prescriptions. So planning free cultural space becomes our logical next step, planning places where nothing should be planned. Freiraum is a German word used to designate free space. It stands for all places where behavioral constraints are suspended. In theory all public spaces are Freiraums. Behavior constraints in public places are exercised though through, for example, one-way traffic signs, or bans on drinking alcohol, smoking joints, making music, sitting in the grass or laying on a park-bench. Public space is definitely no longer free space ...

* = “Making Room: Cultural Production in Occupied Spaces”, ISBN 978-0-9791377-9-2, Editors: Alan W. Moore, Alan Smart

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruigoord

https://ruigoord.nl/

https://www.facebook.com/Ruigoord/

https://ruigoord.wordpress.com/

https://issuu.com/lndvlmsn/docs/rui

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Francis Alÿs, Cuentos patrióticos

https://francisalys.com/cuentos-patrioticos/ https://issuu.com/francisalys/docs/a_story_of_deception/62

“Patriotic Tales shows the artists leading a flock of sheep to encircle the flag post of the Zócalo to create a sort of symbolic massive flock of animals, suggesting that they were awaiting democratization. The action was an explicit homage to an important event of the Mexican ’68. When a group of bureaucrats were brought to the Zócalo on August 28, 1968, supposedly to “restore the dignity” of the Mexican flag that according to the presidency had been offended by the red and black flag of the student strike, they broke the institutionalized silence of the regime by braying like sheep. With historical hindsight, Patriotic Tales reactivated the memory of the moment when student movement effectively came close to put the hegemony of the regime in danger, akin to the breaking point in the events of May ’68 when the Renault Union joined the general strike called by the students. It is likely that the rebellion of the bureaucrats that day could have been the last drop that confirmed for government the decision of aborting the student movement by means of force." - link

Baa…We’re Sheep! “The student rebellion even spread into very respectable sections of middle-class people in Mexico City. On August 28, after a huge and unruly demonstration in the central Zócalo Plaza–up till then considered sacred turf reserved for PRI mobilizations–the government said that national symbols had been “insulted.” Thousands of bureaucrats and government office employees were herded onto buses and taken to the Zócalo for a ceremony to “right the wrong.” The government expected these government employees to be their most loyal followers. But hundreds began to bleat loudly: “Baa…we don’t want to go, we’re sheep…Baa!” Students who had infiltrated the crowd began to call impromptu meetings then and there. Political discussion broke out in every small group of bureaucrats. The government had to call in tanks and soldiers to disperse its own rally, as running battles erupted through the center of town and a hail of bottles fell from the rooftops.”

Somos borregos, beeee

Ceremonia del Desagravio

Somos borregos nos llevan a la fuerza (We are sheep they took us by force)

also: https://issuu.com/francisalys/docs/a_story_of_deception/78

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Iraqi Embassy in the GDR

https://www.abandonedberlin.com/iraqi-embassy/

https://digitalcosmonaut.com/2013/111-places-in-berlin-abandoned-iraqi-embassy/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/digitalcosmonaut/sets/72157631576242127/

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/abandoned-iraqi-embassy

https://youtu.be/9sdSalKg-iw

https://second.wiki/wiki/irakische_botschaft_in_der_ddr

https://vimeo.com/10324517

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Universal Embassy (Squatting the Somali Embassies)

https://www.cristianoberti.it/eng/opere/universal%20embassy/description.php

https://www.exibart.com/evento-arte/cristiano-berti-universal-embassy/

Brussels (Ambassade Universelle):

The former Somali Embassy in Brussels is squatted by “sans-papiers” (undocumented asylum seekers), who proclaim a Universal Embassy on the premises. Coalescing into a formal organization, adopting the language and vocabulary such as flag and passport and becoming a reference point for assistance and direction, the participants came to be known as the Universal Embassy – a place where those without papers could find help within their statelessness. Universal Embassyis activist project with the cooperation of the artist Tristan Wibault. The project hosts and helps sans-papiers fighting for regularization and tries to operate in a very narrow jurisdictional space, but it also works on the strengthening of those everyday social bonds that the condition of clandestine tend to deteriorate. Universal Embassy is a utopian embassy that represents those who are not represented.

“Making Room: Cultural Production in Occupied Spaces”, p. 312-19

Hito Steyerl, Universal Embassy, 2004, 4 minutes (Disobedience Archive)

https://www.ieb.be/L-Ambassade-Universelle-des-diplomates-sans-chauffeur

https://www.arteradio.com/son/658/ambassade_universelle

https://transversal.at/transversal/1203/wibault/en

http://translate.eipcp.net/transversal/0704/nowotny/en/print.html

https://www.hiiraan.com/news4/2014/Feb/53170/somali_expats_plan_to_rebuild_somalia_s_embassy_in_belgium.aspx

Italy:

https://flic.kr/s/aHsjt8JKuQ

https://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2004/11/419a246f4/former-embassy-home-desperate-somalis-rome.html

https://www.hiiraan.com/news4/2015/July/100944/somalia_regains_rome_embassy_ownership_after_years_of_legal_battle.aspx

https://roma.repubblica.it/cronaca/2012/11/18/foto/la_ex_sede_dell_ambasciata_somala_in_via_dei_villini-46945919/2/

https://roma.corriere.it/gallery/roma/02-2011/ratti_ambasciata/1/derattizzazione-ex-ambasciata-somala-lo-stupro_ef6c18ee-41d8-11e0-b406-2da238c0fa39.shtml

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https://www.academia.edu/12484267/_Activism_and_Camping_in_Documenta_10_11_and_13_in_Alan_Moore_and_Alan_Smart_eds_Making_Room_Cultural_Production_in_Occupied_Spaces

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aNYi6ih6ePGyoVAslOcaYtCJKDb-IAm8/view?usp=sharing

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