thereby exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe we have witnessed over the past decade.
In this context, Làbas and Quaderni Urbani have become co-funders of the courageous operation of Mediterranea Saving Humans (Mediterranea). This operation arose from the indignation fostered in us by the repressive and racist measures enacted by political institutions. Mediterranea was born as an enlarged umbrella association of different political groups and civic associations. Through international crowdfunding, the project has brought two boats back into the Mediterranean. Having an Italian flag, the two boats are partially spared from the restrictive measures applied to NGOs’ boats. In the span of eight months, Mediterranea’s boats have been involved in seven patrol missions in the Strait of Sicily. To date, the operation has rescued 237 people. The beginning of this mission led Quaderni Urbani to enlist in what we have called the ‘land crew’. The land crew of Mediterranea has the task of spreading as much as possible the message of the project, of raising funds, and of empowering civil society to recognise the value of humanity. Although simple and basic, this value has assumed traits of heroism in a time marked by an increasing barbarisation of the public debate.
Taking advantage of our previous experience with the social library, we first took care of the management of a private library that was donated to us. The books of this library were sold to finance the mission. We organised a weekly ‘book banquet’ aimed at selling as well as collecting books and magazines. Through the resources obtained by selling the books we have brought a considerable economic contribution to Mediterranea and the banquet has also been an opportunity to talk about the operation and activate new forces around it.
We also sought to amplify the narrative power of the operation, by organising public thematic readings of some texts that our comrades had written. The reading Voices for Mediterranea gathered two types of texts: ‘logbooks’, that is, testimonies of direct experiences of navigation and rescue in the Strait of Sicily, and ‘land journals’, written by comrades who, like ourselves, had participated in the land crew.
The success of the event was huge. During 2019 we were asked to organise this thematic reading more than four times and the logbooks and journals of Mediterranea will soon published by Quaderni Urbani. It is not intended for these texts to be simply a literary exercise. On the contrary, they are born to witness and to communicate the personal efforts and political intentions entailed in a mission aimed at saving human lives from death at sea. In this way a wonderful and powerful interweaving of action and art is realised. This form of art gives recognition to the generous effort of those who jeopardise their physical and legal safety to fight against inhumanity and disengagement. Through these readings we thus ambitiously sought to turn our voices into megaphones.
Examples of external collaborations (2018–19)
Over the years, Quaderni Urbani has managed to create and diffuse an independent and free cultural offering, also thanks to the collaborations developed with other artistic and political groups animated by the same values. We have asked each of our collaborators to take an unequivocal position with respect to the issues we consider decisive, such as the anti-sexist and anti-racist nature of our activities.
In relation to these external collaborations, a particularly interesting example is that of the meetings with students of the Academy of Fine Arts, which have allowed an exchange of information and mutual training on the difficulties experienced by those who wish to make a living through art. By using our spaces within Làbas as an ‘open atelier’, we have sought to meet the needs of young emerging artists of the city of Bologna by enabling them to use the open atelier as a free exhibition space. Through the open atelier we have sought to spare art from commodification and to open up opportunities for critical discussion on the problems of independent culture.
During the event Avant-Punk, organised in partnership with the group LaZecca (a political and cultural collective working mostly through music), we promoted an unusual meeting between the surrealist movement and underground music. Through this event, we sought to give visibility to female surrealist artists, such as Nancy Cunard and Anaïs Nin, authors of a fervent literary counter-narrative permeated by the recusal of the dominant values and declined in terms of feminist and anti-fascist militancy. In addition to the public reading of their writings, some of which were translated into Italian for the first time by our group, the event included the exhibition of surrealist thematic posters and the screening of some short movies by Luis Buñuel, with simultaneous musical accompaniment. From a rebellious and eccentric subculture was thus born a seductive and dreamlike crossover of genres, in an evening that was a memorable experience of a riot of lights, sounds, colours and poetic verses.
Continuing our reflection on gender issues and in preparation for the global strike of the trans-feminist movement of NonUnaDiMeno, we developed a collaboration with the independent theatre company Ortika. This collaboration has led to the staging of a show on the topic of femicide. Femicide is an abomination that is still very prevalent in Italy and that needs to be addressed also changing narratives and discourses on violence against women. Indeed, our group will soon author a play script written collectively on the issue of gender-based violence. It is superfluous to continue enumerating the many events that have taken place in addition to those already mentioned: the history of Quaderni Urbani, although brief, already includes a rich haul of experience and achievements.
Conclusions: on sustainability and the role of militancy
A hungry belly has no ears.
(Jean de la Fontaine)
It is impossible for a call for justice to sprout in ground suffering from severe material scarcity, and in economically deprived contexts. This is the problem to which cultural activism remains exposed. Those who work through the arts or through knowledge must be aware that those who are receptive to cultural inputs are not the entire population but, on the contrary, represent a small privileged minority. Next to them, there is an endless multitude of people whose life has the appearance of a daily struggle for survival. Anyone who advocates the cause of social transformation only through culture and education is unaware that these same means can be used to achieve the opposite purpose, that is, they can be used as instruments of the reproduction of a system of inequalities. Culture can educate to the indifferent acceptance of injustice and to voluntary servitude too. This ‘culture’ hides from the more deprived groups the material conditions that could allow them to empower and emancipate themselves. This culture, like every attempt to make knowledge the prerogative of the few, entails ill-concealed authoritarian tendencies.
As I have previously argued, this is not the kind of culture that interests the political activist. The principles that inspire cultural activism are exactly opposite. It is truly worthy of us only when it is good for everyone, and knowledge becomes a form of oppression when it is not understood as collective achievement. The experience of Quaderni Urbani can represent a model of activism in which intellectual work is placed at the service of the community and where the horizontal sharing of knowledge gives rise to a commitment to social equality. However, the ultimate goal of liberation from inequality, in order to be achieved, requires that this commitment should not remain only at the intellectual level. This commitment must be translated into practices aimed at the concrete deconstruction of the system of inequality. True cultural activism must entail a two-fold emancipatory aim: cultural activism should work towards the liberation of bodies, no less than of the spirits. Only then, following Mayakovski’s invitation, can we avoid art being simply a mirror that reflects the world, and allow it to become the hammer through which the world can be forged.
References
Benjamin, W. (1935) ‘Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit’ [The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction] in Walter Benjamin Schriften, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.
Bourdieu, P. and Passeron J. (1970) La Reproduction: Éléments pour une Théorie du Système d’Enseignement [Reproduction in Education, Society
