Artivism: reconstructing the truth
The sun went down at the back of the mountain. The group had a common dinner in the albergue enjoying each other’s presence while having a look at the clock. The time was coming. Everything started in the morning when we were doing a team-building exercise in the “Fábrica de la Luz” (Light’s factory), an old open cabin in a mountain of Spain). In the past century, this place used to be an electric power station run by the water stream. Nowadays it is a forgotten space, only used by tired hikers or encouraged youngsters to spend the time far away from the town.
While the team was doing their exercises in this space, our eyes had a view of how the cabin was altered. People in the past used different art tools, such as graffiti or pocket knives on the walls of rock and wood to write inscriptions attempting the religious, sex and anti-nationalism ideas. Sentences such as “Islam terror” or “maricones fuera” (gay’s out) were all around the place. Also, we could see some symbols coming from the social-nationalism (Nazi) times. As peacebuilders and believers of the common spaces with and for everyone, we brainstorm a solution to create a safe space for all.
Debunking the hate propaganda while transforming it into a Love Speech is difficult, as we do not know what comes across the mind of the actors of these acts (we can presuppose, but we will not have all the reasons or the real-truth without questioning them directly). Besides, we wanted to reclaim the space and change it. Art itself is one of the most powerful tools to reshape minds and actions, confronting ideas and providing a mechanism of action that everyone can be part of. That’s why the group decided to take action and work on it in the upcoming days.
Sometimes you need to do an action that changes plans (the ongoing learning process of the training course in which we were. A group was set up and the next steps set: what, how, when and who. We already had the Where and Why. With the understanding of the next steps we did not only get the action being active but also the group started to learn the skills of management, trust, community and action coordination. Within ten minutes, the tasks were shared, and the idea became tangible.
The sun went down. The group had the common dinner and the clock showed the time. With bags full of various spray paint cans, paper and scissors we went down the road towards the open cabin. In the meantime, the group was divided into smaller groups, and the creativity began. Some decided to create a word template with the papers and scissors while others were testing their art without having a plan beforehand. We were there for thirty minutes, finding the hate speech around and transforming it into love speech.
Hearts, words, symbols… approaches are as open as the imagination. The power of art. At the end of the action, we signed with our initials. “We were here” — we stated. On the coming back, our adrenaline started to go down while the feeling of empowerment raised. Our hope was that this street painting will last in time.
Art itself is not a solution to this political and social dystopia, besides, it is a tool to raise awareness and provoke critical thinking to the casual visitors of the space. One year later, the hate words came back, but nowadays they are confronted with our own designs. How will this affect (having two confronted ideas) the visitor? What is the learning point they will get from here? Does it give alternative thinking to social hate?
This action is one of the multiples that are happening around the world. And we aim to come back and, again, reconstruct the truth while reclaiming the space. It only takes a group and an idea. We will continue to confront ideas and make art the tool to showcase the possibilities of our common path towards a peaceful and inclusive society.
This article was written as part of “Peace Education articles” activity within an Operating Grant of the Youth Peace Ambassadors Network project financed by the European Union’s Erasmus+ Programme.
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