Nobody Expects… Imagining Transnational Mobilization

Ligna

 

 

'Be realistic. Demand the impossible!'
 Situationist International

Nobody Expects… clearly refers to one of the first #hashtags invented during the Spanish mobilization in the spring of 2011 and that had the ability to communicate the intent of moving along a line of continuity with the Arab Spring while proposing a different understanding of the term 'revolution' and linking with other European movements. #Nobody expects the Spanish Revolution ironically appropriated the famous Monty Python catchphrase 'Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition' to turn it into an efficacious and appealing slogan that announced and presented the movement as something unpredictable and, as such, in the condition to challenge and question the present scenario.

The ongoing protests and demonstrations bursting all over the world made clear the intertwined relationship between communication and mobilization as well as made manifest the urgency of the protesters to search for shared body, verbal and visual languages to produce a sense of belonging independently from geographical coordinates. In this sense, exchanging experiences and best practices, testing reciprocally participatory and democratic models for taking decisions and produce new actions, go along side, and become themselves, forms of self-representation and exercises, for those who mobilized, to understand  themselves as parts of the same collectivity.
 
The ideas produced by the invited artists have been presented in form of posters at the Teatro Valle during the closing days of Transeuropa Festival alongside with installation, video and performances.
 
Here you can see the posters designed by Tim Etchells, Daniela Kostova, Luchezar Boyadjiev, Hiwa K, Ivan Moudov, Ligna, Public Works, Zhou Xiaohu and Aldo Giannotti:

Ivan Moudov

 

Aldo Giannotti

 

Hiwa K.

 

Luchezar Boyadjiev

 

Tim Etchells

Daniela Kostova