Join the march!
There is a march! A demonstration, as they say in England, or a manifestation in French. What is it? It is to put our bodies in space where they are not intended to be as a claim. It had recently seemed almost like a relic of past time, something that people used to do long ago.
Since the powerful demonstrations in Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere sparked the Arab Spring of 2011, leading to the downfall of long-term dictatorships in Egypt and Tunisia, the march seems like a crucial event once more. It is movement through space, a reclamation of space and a place where people and ideas meet. It allows us to be other than the objects of global capital.
Since the powerful demonstrations in Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere sparked the Arab Spring of 2011, leading to the downfall of long-term dictatorships in Egypt and Tunisia, the march seems like a crucial event once more. It is movement through space, a reclamation of space and a place where people and ideas meet. It allows us to be other than the objects of global capital.
This project uses the metaphor of the march to tell a story about revolution and decolonization in Algeria (1954-2011). These are the moments when it is possible to stage the people (click for abstract). This a march in, or in support of, Algeria, whether as a formerly colonized nation seeking independence, or as a metonym for those processes.
It asks: how can we "see" Algeria, its decolonization and revolution? Following the lead of Frantz Fanon, it takes the point of view of the child, meaning both children as such, the colonized "child" of the parent nation, and the "infant" revolution that emerged.
The Zapatistas say that everything they do is "walking," a journey that has no final destination. This walking is done here by means of text, media and to-camera videos. This format, allowing as it does for a set of intersecting and interfacing threads to compose the whole, is better suited to reclaiming and exploring these histories than the linear text-based narrative.
The Zapatistas say that everything they do is "walking," a journey that has no final destination. This walking is done here by means of text, media and to-camera videos. This format, allowing as it does for a set of intersecting and interfacing threads to compose the whole, is better suited to reclaiming and exploring these histories than the linear text-based narrative.
So it is both a story about Algeria as such and a way to understand the interface of decolonization and globalization. Whether or not you work "on" or about Algeria, there is an "Algeria" in your work, meaning that there is a place where the incomplete or failed processes of decolonization and the formation of independent developing-world nations intersect with the power of financial globalization. We need to occupy that place, not erase it.
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