Friday, March 14, 2014
Private Dining Room (Omni Shoreham)
On June 8th 2013, the Cinema Patricia Heras opened its doors. 24 hours later, they closed. For one night, 700 activists occupied Barcelona’s abandoned Palace of Cinema to premier a documentary made to shed light on a controversial legal case. In 2006, four young people were beaten up and jailed following the injury of a police officer. In the trial’s aftermath, Patricia Heras, one of those accused, took her own life. Demanding a re-opening of the case and decrying systemic problems of corruption and police brutality, the occupation brought out a diverse range of participants: squatters, indignados, victims’ family members, and iaioflautas – militant grandparents who stood guard outside while the film rolled. These kinds of broad, intergenerational coalitions have become increasingly visible in Spain, as the massive demonstrations and encampments of 2011 prompted a revival of dormant neighborhood assemblies, mutual aid networks and a re-integration of autonomous social centers. From celebrations of resistance under Franco’s dictatorship, to “anarcho-feminist” street actions calling out longer legacies of institutionalized, gender violence - Barcelona’s past is being mobilized to join living generations’ fight against an austerity regime that values security over justice. Scholars have rightly pointed out the importance of innovative protest tactics and technologies (Castells 2012, Juris 2012). However, activists are increasingly drawing on and articulating with historic struggles - in Benjamin’s terms, “appropriating a memory as it flashes up in a moment of danger,” extending their fight across both space and time, challenging recent injustices while trying to unsettle deeply-rooted inequalities.
