“Was Yo Mango a fashion show?Was it stealing or was it radical politics? Was a street party a carnival, was it a rave or was it a kind of political action for the commons? Is the clown army a really stupid bunch of people dressed up in costumes making silly noises, or is it a new form of civil disobedience?So, for me creative resistance can be this trickster edge thing when you don’t know quite what it is, but you know it opens up space, and you never know what is going to happen.”
Interview with John Jordan about art, activism, commonality and the potential of performative interventions in our struggle for social change.
The interview was filmed in Antic Teatre during a self-organized international gathering of creative activism, How to End Evil. 5 Days of Art and Activism, 27 to 31 of March, 2012, organized by Enmedio.
Barcelona, March 2012
*The work of John Jordan consists in the application of imagination and artistic creativity to social movements and struggles. He co-founded Reclaim the Streets (1995-2001), and the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination (2004-2012). He’s invented various methods of direct action, like The Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, a clown army that confronts power structures with trickster humor. He is coauthor of We are everywhere: the irresistible rise of global anticapitalism, and of Les sentiers de l’utopie, a book-film created with Isabelle Fremeaux, the exploress a good number of utopian communities throughout Europe.
