La Casa Invisible project was started in 2007 in Malaga, Spain, when a group of socially involved participants squatted in a run-down building, aiming to eventually claim the legal rights to the property (Moor & Smart, 2016). The space was opened to local artists and creators, quickly becoming a hub for free local music, performances, and seminars as well as creating an important meeting space for social groups (Moor & Smart, 2016).
Zoo Portraits is a humorous photo series by Barcelona-based photographer Yago Partal that matches animal heads with human bodies. Partal amazingly matches animals to appropriate human bodies and even manages to match their personalities and styles.
"On July 5, 2002, a strange new brand began cropping up in the streets of Barcelona. That day, at the height of sales season, more than fifty people rushed through the center of Barcelona to the Bershka clothing store to perform the very first Yomango fashion show.
The crisis is here, let the party begin! April 30, 2009. At first the crisis was just a state of being, a kind of social sadness that paralyzed everything. To break this atmosphere we couldn’t think of anything better than to throw a party. The first thing you need for a party is a good location, so we set out to find a place where social sadness and fear were extremely present. It didn’t take us long to find one: an unemployment office.
La huelga general europea del #14N no sólo nos dejó un importante seguimiento y abrumadora movilización en España y otros PIG's, sino que también desplegó la habitual fuerza y originalidad creativa de la cual se vienen dotando las protestas en España desde el 15 de mayo.
58,241 evictions were conducted in Spain in 2011, mostly through real estate speculation by the Mediterranean Savings Bank. In Intervention #1, the artist created a cooperative through which she contracted a construction worker (who himself had been evicted from his own house) to remove the entrance doors to other foreclosed properties. In this way, houses were accessible and open to public use, and occupants were not liable for housebreaking.
David Wojnarowicz was born on September 14, 1954, and died on July 22, 1992, at the age of 37 due to AIDS-related complications. Before he became an artist, he attended a Performing Arts high school from which he dropped out of in order to make a living as a farmer in Canada. This was up until he made a name for himself as an artist in New York’s cultural scene.
In an effort to provide abused children with a safe way to reach out for help, a Spanish organization called the Aid to Children and Adolescents at Risk Foundation, or ANAR for short, created an ad that displays a different message for adults and children at the same time.
A Centro Social Okupado Autogestionado (Self-Managed Occupied Social Center) or CSOA is an occupied building dedicated to the development of social and cultural activities. They are part of the “movimiento okupa” (“squatter movement”), a label created and circulated by the mainstream press.
First cut the banks! In 2012 Bankia declared itself bankrupt and, almost immediately, asked the Government of Spain for €23 billion. The Government accepted, yet that very same week ordered €20,000 million worth of cuts in health and education. It was then that we realized that what they called a crisis was actually a scam. You wouldn’t believe how pissed off we were. So we threw a party, because there is nothing like partying to relieve your anger.
A television report written, directed and produced by Enmedio members Leónidas Martín and Xavier Artigas. Collective projects that see art as a kind of social relationship. Artistic interventions that target consumption, media guerrilla tactics, creative mobilisations and protest, critical projects brimming with humour and disobedience, new narratives capable of changing the existing symbols and codes.
"Las sinsombrero" ("without hat") were a group of spanish women formed by the artists Maruja Mallo, Margarita Manso, Concha Méndez and the socialist activist Margarita Nelken.
Spain’s most devastating environmental disaster took place 20 years ago, on the evening of November 13th, 2002. The Prestige oil spill occurred off the coast of Galicia, part of northern Spain. The spilled oil, in time, covered around 2,000 kilometers of the Galician coast.
This project was born a few days after a demonstrator lost an eye after being hit by a rubber bullet shot from police guns in Barcelona. Unfortunately, it was not the first time. "Cop d' ull" means a "a blow to the eye" and also "at a glance”, which is a perfect description of this project.
Whether or not they follow politics, it’s fair to assume most people don’t actually read electoral programs. Podemos, Spain’s growing leftwing party, which got nearly 21% of the votes in last year’s elections, doesn’t think that’s good, so it adopted an unusual marketing approach to tackle that problem: it printed the program as an Ikea catalogue (pdf, link in Spanish).
Spanish soccer has witnessed and engaged in a variety of conversations in the last few years: Racism, politics, xenophobia, territorial issues, corruption, inmigration. However, there is an issue that remains untouched, and this issue is homophobia. Soccer is still a context where it is acceptable to use the word "marica" ("queer") in a pejorative way.
From intimate portraits to urban performance art, the through line of photographer Carlota Guerrero’s work has always been her stripped back sense of feminine reverie: rumpled sheets and broken shells, translucent tights and long braids, dusty floors and bare chests.
On a damp and rainy Sunday in October of 1935, Munro Leaf sat down to write a story. He had been eager to work with his friend – the illustrator Robert Lawson – for some time and so he decided to pen a book which he felt might suit the illustrator’s skills. Lawson was a master at drawing animals but horses, dogs, cats, rabbits and mice had all been done a thousand times already.
El movimiento 15M ha abierto la veda a una protesta insistente, que mantiene la presencia en la calle. Según la delegada de gobierno, Cristina Cifuentes, en Madrid hay ocho manifestaciones diarias.
Showcasing death to defend life
El Pais, Madrid
Activists protested with the organization Animal Equality (Igualdad Animal) in Puerta del Sol, Madrid, Burgos, and Toledo on December 10, commemorating the international Animal Rights Day.
In 2019 before the annual San Fermin festival 54 protesters from around the world representing AnimaNaturalis and PETA held a demonstration against the cruel sport of bullfighting. The celebration of culture and religion subsequent to the murder and torture of dozens of bulls is the spectacle of San Fermin that draws an army of international tourists to the small city of Pamplona.
Even though Spain is constitutionally defined as a non-confessional nation, the Catholic Church still holds great power. For example, the Catholic Church is exempt from paying certain taxes, and can reclaim certain buildings as their property. This often creates frictions and conflicts with the activist groups and organizations that would prefer a more secular political environment.
Francisco Goya created “The Disasters of War” from 1810-1820. These 80 etchings and aquatints show scenes from the Spanish struggle against the French army under Napolean Bonaparte, who invaded Spain in 1808. When Napolean tried to install his brother Joseph Bonaparte, as King of Spain, the Spanish fought back, eventually aided by the British and the Portugese.
On November 7, 2010 Pope Benedict XVI visited our city. He would have been better off staying at home. Even before he touched land we had rendered him impotent for life. Yes: im-po-tent.
The Spanish 15M/INDIGNADOS social movement represents a citizen break-up with the current political system while proposing an alternative one, creatively transforming the prevailing participation and action patterns in its society.