D Form festival - A weekend TAZ experiment in Barcelona

by o as if Fri Oct 01, 2004 14:07

D Form is currently being evicted by the police. The site (for the 3 day TAZ experiment) was occupied earlier this week, and the police went along to have a look. Everything was almost ready and in tippy toppy condition, except for the skateboard park.
Bcn interestingly is the only city left in the EU where a young chap or chapess may legally skateboard on the open street.

They are a fucking menace.
& a waste of fashion.

Anyway, some of your "local activists", ( the bicycling duo ) are on the scene, so if they get banged up I'll let you all know, and we'll start a campaign or something. (I'm taking the piss, don't worry they're not in danger, and even so I'd go bail for them) This doesn't mean I'd go bail for every crusty who comes down here, so don't turn it into a deluge-

check the D form site or BCN indymedia central column for updates.

by iosaf - different place same problem Sat Oct 02, 2004 22:35

Dform has in a very shrunken way, turned into an impromptu rts! thing, with over a thousand people following a big truck with some of the most popular musicians over here on board. (the group ojos de brujo - witches eyes) This was after the authorities prevented a second site from being used by the Dform bunch, and finally tonight wouldn't let the big truck park at the city centre placa catalunya.

A lot of people (mostly travellers with their children) are now homeless, and on the road again. Where they lived will continue to be empty industrial brown sites, on the outskirts of the city, still not valuable enough to be redeveloped. Many of these families will not find another halting site easily. The authorities not only closed the assigned Dform site but also evicted the abandoned factory premises where the preparatory meetings had been held and all who had lived there.

For nothing more than what appears to be institutional pique. Dform has brought artists and colaborators from all over europe to BCN this weekend to celebrate culture in a sustainable way, in effect to all the cultural purposes of the Forum. And obviously for an awful less money than the Forum cost. In the eviction, the police not only broke equipment but also injured some who had been working to prepare the site. Meanwhile the councilor (ERC) for the area where the festival was to be held has criticised the minister responsible (PSC) for her handling of the situation. There are an awful lot of dissappointed people here. Not only those who worked to prepare the weekend, (what I suppose might have seemed like a really good people's park foray that you had in dun laoighaire recently) but also those who wanted to see the performances, listen to the music, pick up the information, eat the food, make a connection, have a "free day out". just see what would happen.

Culture that is "our culture" of festival, circus as well as the values of using waste space, being self sufficient have been attacked and this only reflects their undermining all over the EU. Councils and municipal authorities bend over backwards to present such events, to find performers but only when there are sponsership opportunities or commercial profits to be made.

Yet those who participate in our culture are not going to go away. They don't cease to exist just because their houses are evicited or their spaces sold. We have yet to see hundreds of thousands of our socio-economic class leaving the EU in ideological disgust to take up lives in the third world-
And we are not going to. And in such a way municipal authorities store up resentment and problems for their own futures.

Dform has dis-associated itself in a statement this morning from any further consequences of the cancellation and evicitons and what does seem like persecution of those involved.

Meanwhile, everyone - everywhere just needs to go on doing it and trying to do it.

If it's broken mend it.
If it's ripped sew it.
they may only sell your culture if you participate.
if there's enough of you -
you can have a party.

by iosaf - (i'm still a bit iffy on skateboarders) Wed Aug 03, 2005 18:57

the Dform festival, was a TAZ & DIY event much smaller than czechtek but along the same kind of vibe, the site was squatted which nominally allowed the catalan police to evict, but the violence with which they did it, made them generational enemies amongst the young, and drew condemnation then.
That same weekend (october 3) the presumed number 1 in ETA mikel Anxa was arrested with others in the basque along with SAM missiles and stuff.
& two women police officers of the catalan police were murdered within walking distance of the Dform festival in their home after being tortured and raped by a serial sex criminal who had been given optional release, whilst the police beat the ravers to a pulp he cut up their colleagues down the road.

There are indeed "scales of morality".

& there can be no doubt that yet another generation are learning to hate the forces of law and order. & it is most odd, that as they are labelled "anarchists" by the new political class of Europe, that they also appear in their numbers and prevalence to be the largest growing politically aware group of youngsters on the continent.
Their values of DIY, mend it, autonomy,, sharing and fun have much to offer a Europe of social equality and just working conditions, but they are rejected, again and again the these youngsters are the target of politically motivated police brutality.

I wonder why?
do the new political europeans really believe they can continue their projects without the respect, good will or support of european youth?
Maybe they're hoping the alternative youth movements of the extreme right will vote for them instead come 2010, 2020, 2030...

Needless to say the Dform people didn't give up.
They're still going, doing occasional things in "rented property", the "right way" just like, (ahem)
czechtek did, do & will do...
http://www.deform.org/tiki-index.php