In 2008, as the storms of the financial crash blew, Isabelle Fremeaux
and Jay Jordan deserted the metropolis and their academic jobs,
traveling across Europe in search of post-capitalist utopias. They
wanted their art activism to no longer be uprooted.
They arrived at a
place French politicians had declared lost to the republic, otherwise
know as the zad (the zone to defend): a messy but extraordinary
canvas of commoning, illegally occupying 4,000 acres of wetlands
where an international airport was planned. In 2018, the 40-year-long
struggle snatched an incredible victory, defeating the airport
expansion project through a powerful cocktail that merged creation
and resistance.
Fremeaux and Jordan
blend rich eyewitness accounts with theory, inspired by a diverse
array of approaches, from neo-animism to revolutionary biology,
insurrectionary writings and radical art history.
Published in
collaboration with the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest.
