art

Artist and activist James Brady will be delivering the Commonweal Lecture for 2018 – Commonweal’s 60th anniversary.

His topic will be la ZAD, a bold experiment in common living in rural France.

We asked him to tell us about la ZAD and why it deserves us our attention right now.

Commonweal Lecture 23rd October 2018

James Brady

La ZAD isn’t as well-known as it could be among UK activists. Please tell us what it stands for (the name and also the place!).

ZAD means ‘Zone to Defend’ (Zone à Défendre in French). The place is a utopian experiment of collective common living on 4,000 acres of rural landscape in Western France (near the city of Nantes).

The territory was first liberated from the French State’s plans (in 1968) to build a new airport for the nearby city of Nantes (which already has a perfectly functioning airport). This was achieved through an occupation by farmers who opposed the plans.

In recent years, the zone has been opened up to welcome anyone willing to stand in solidarity. It’s a place of great social diversity, which is the key to its success so far.

Continue reading Improvising the commons: lessons from la ZAD

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Mark Goldthorpe runs the ClimateCultures project, which showcases ‘contributions by artists, curators or researchers working on many aspects of environmental or climate change’.

Its strapline is ‘Creative conversations for the Anthropocene’ (the era when human influence dominates climate and environment), and we took the direct approach by starting a conversation with Mark himself about climate, culture, violence and imagination… 

Mark Goldthorpe ©Paul Musso 2017

Mark Goldthorpe ©Paul Musso 2017

1) In a nutshell, Mark, what do climate and culture (and activism) have to do with each other?

That’s a huge question, I think!

Continue reading If the Anthropocene is violence, what is nonviolence? An interview with Mark Goldthorpe

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‘the sea cannot be depleted‘ is an online artwork that uses sound and spoken word to call attention to the Solway Firth.

Why? Because of the depleted uranium (DU) buried beneath its surface. Because the UK Ministry of Defence fired many tonnes of artillery shells into the Solway Estuary over 30 years or more, from the 1980s onwards.

Essays and further information about the firings are also available here.

After encountering this stirring piece of work online, we put the following questions to the piece’s writer and producer, Wallace Heim.

Wallace Heim

Wallace Heim

Continue reading Art, activism and the nuclear sea: an interview with Wallace Heim

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