A user’s guide to (demanding) the impossible

This 62-page downloadable booklet was written in a whirlwind of three days in December 2010, between the first and second days of action by students in the UK against the government cuts, and intended to reflect on the possibility of new creative forms of action in the current movements. It was distributed at a number of the art schools that were occupied during this period and at The Long Weekend, an event in London organised by Arts Against Cuts to bring artists and activists together to plan and plot actions for the following days, including the teach-in disruption of the Turner Prize at Tate Britain, the collective manifesto write-in at the National Gallery and the UK’s version of the book bloc. “This guide is not a road map or instruction manual. It’s a match struck in the dark, a homemade multi-tool to help you carve out your own path through the ruins of the present, warmed by the stories and strategies of those who took Bertolt Brecht’s words to heart: ‘Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.'”