I always prefer to do interviews in person. And last summer I had the pleasure of taking the podcast on a mini-tour to France and the UK, diving into five different conversations on everything from the mystery of imagination to the power of song.
The first stop is a historical piece of land known as the ZAD, in Notre Dame des Landes, Brittany. ZAD is short for zone à defendre (a zone to defend). And this ZAD rose to fame because – after 40 years of struggle, tireless work and unlikely alliances – its supporters managed to stop the building of a planned airport.
The success of the ZAD raises very interesting questions like: How do we manifest the world we would like to see? How are modes of creativity such as art and activism connected to things like magic and ritual? How does being rooted in a place help us defend it? In this episode I’m speaking to Isa Fremeaux, who is a writer, activist and resident of the ZAD.
Isa Fremeaux is an educator and action researcher, formerly senior lecturer in Media and Cultural Isa Fremeaux is a writer, activist and educator, formerly senior lecturer in Media and Cultural studies at Birckbeck College, London. Together with her partner Jay Jordan she has, among other things, created Pathways to Utopia, a film/book project exploring utopian communities in Europe, and the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, a place for experiments at the intersection of art and activism. Their book “We Are ‘Nature’ Defending Itself – Entangling Art, Activism and Autonomous Zones” explores these ideas further and takes us along on part of the journey of the ZAD.
LINKS:
- Isa and Jay’s book: We are ‘Nature’ Defending Itself – Entangling Art, Activism and Autonomous Zones: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745345871/we-are-nature-defending-itself/
- Pathways to Utopia: https://lessentiersdelutopie.wordpress.com/trailer/
- Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination: https://labo.zone/
- Links to the six points: https://zad.nadir.org/IMG/pdf/6pointszad-a3-2.pdf
- The invisible committee: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/comite-invisible
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