Enclosure in the Reina Sofía Museum, Madrid: Rights, Democracy, and Dignity for Culture and Communication

on Friday, May 10th, we’ll start dealing with what’s happening to us.

This is an invitation.

On Friday, May 10th, we’ll lock ourselves in at Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum. «We» are Culture and Communication workers. «We» are also former Culture and Communication workers. «We» are also people who believe that Culture and Communication are important, essential elements of democracy, and part of the commons. We’ll do it while other people take over other squares in the city and do their own enclosures, defending Health Care, Education, Housing, and Democracy.

For we have seen our local cultural centres close. We have seen public and private media channels turn to precariousness, not only in terms of employment, but also in terms of quality of information.

For we have seen our local cinemas turned into fashion outlets.

For we have seen how the minuscule public culture budgets were not managed in a democratic and participative manner.

For we have seen out V.A.T. taxes rise to the point of condemning us to unemployemnt and to the impossibility of gaining access to culture at reasonable costs.

For we have seen out small independent theatres closing down and public theatres disappear.

For we are not stars, but normal people in a state of precariousness and unemployment.

For the words we utter most often are lay-off, closing-down, foreclosure (and other words, just as ugly)

For we have been offered to work for free in exchange for «visibility», and that doesn’t pay our rent.

For the owners of these new monopolies and the digital intermediaries keep the wealth we generate, instead of sharing it.

For we have seen the Government and the Opposition launch horrendous campaigns against people that share information, communication, and culture.

For the old rights don’t pay our rent, and they don’t let us create and share, either.

For we love to create, we are motivated, and we have projects that produce wealth, social relations, and emotions.

For all these reasons, and many more… We’ll lock ourselves overnight in the Reina Sofía Museum, a representative of the «Spain» brand-name all over the world. We’ll do it in order to tell the world that this brand name doesn’t pay its population’s rent.

The enclosure on May 10th is proposed as a starting point, as a space to reflect on how to articulate these issues in a common space. We have a question: What would a «marea», a wide-spread protest of Culture and Communication, be like?

Would like to join us?

takethesquare