Can we imagine a world where those involved in the fight for social and ecological justice somehow renew themselves rather than burn out or give up? A culture with care rather than exploitation at its heart? Movements where we thrive rather than just endure? This workshop will present some tools for Regenerative Activism, an approach that tries to make our activism more effective and resilient to crises. Rather than just being able to “keep going”, it is about revitalising our personal and collective resources, thus keeping our movements responsive and creative.
With Servane D., Isabelle Fremeaux and Jay Jordan three inhabitants of the autonomous commune Zone to Defend (Zad) in France will come to Vienna. In two workshops and two talks they will offer trainings in (anti-) repression, share tools for a regenerative activism, give insights into the mass movement Les Soulèvements de la Terre, that emerged from Zad, as well as into the creative resistance and joyful forms of disobedience that The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination (Labofii) has been practising.
Isabelle Fremeaux (she/her) is a popular educator, action researcher and deserter of the neoliberal academy where for a decade she was Senior Lecturer at Birkbeck College London. Co-author (with Jay Jordan) of the film and book Les Sentiers de l’utopie (2011, La Découverte), together they coordinate The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination (Labofii), bringing artists and activists together to design tools and acts of disobedience. Jay and Isa live and work on the Zad of Notre-dame-des-landes, 'a territory lost to the republic,' according to the French government, where an international airport project was abandoned after a 40 years of struggle. Isa and Jay’s latest book is about the Zad: We are ‘Nature’ Defending Itself: Entangling Art, Activism and Autonomous Zones (Vagabonds/Pluto/Journal of Aesthetics & Protest, 2021).
Labelled a 'Domestic Extremist' by the UK police, and 'a magician of rebellion' by the French press, Jay Jordan (they/them) co-founded Reclaim the Streets and the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army. They have applied creative tactics to ecological and social justice movements since the 1990’s. They are co-author of We Are Everywhere: The irresistible rise of global anticapitalism (2003,Verso) and A Users Guide to Demanding the Impossible (With Gavin Grindon, Minor Compositions, 2011).
