On Thursday, January 25, Isabelle Fremeaux and Jay Jordan will give a book presentation from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM (entry from 5:00 PM). The book tells the successful story of ‘the zad’ in Notre-Dame-des-Landes.
Location: Fort van Sjakoo, Jodenbreestraat 24,1011 NK Amsterdam
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.
Isa Fremeaux (she/her) and Jay Jordan (they/them)) are infamous for launching a rebel raft regatta to shut down a coal fired power station, turning bikes into machines of disobedience and refusing to be censored by the BP sponsored Tate gallery. They now inhabit the zad of Notre-Dame-des-Landes, ‘a territory lost to the republic,’ according to the French government, where an airport project was abandoned after 40 years of struggle.
Isa & JJ will stay a couple of days in Amsterdam. Read more about Isa & JJ: https://labo.zone/
On Friday 26th of January (19:00-21:00) they will give a lecture titled ‘The joy of Making Trouble. Entangling Art, Activism and everyday life in the face of the Capitalocene’.Location: AHK Culture Club (Kattenburgerstraat 5, building 027 K).
On Saturday 27th of January (09:30-17:00) they will host a workshop ‘Cre(a)ction: between art and activism’ at Buurthuis de Bol (Zilverberg 68B, 1025 CJ Amsterdam). Sign up: https://forms.gle/14X8UYejcLvu21Eq9 (participation is free).
Read more about the lecture and the workshop here: https://www.ahk.nl/actueel/nieuws/2023/12/default-81a0df5126cd86d2b19c9c2f3e84101d/