Even though Spain is constitutionally defined as a non-confessional nation, the Catholic Church still holds great power. For example, the Catholic Church is exempt from paying certain taxes, and can reclaim certain buildings as their property. This often creates frictions and conflicts with the activist groups and organizations that would prefer a more secular political environment.
A Centro Social Okupado Autogestionado (Self-Managed Occupied Social Center) or CSOA is an occupied building dedicated to the development of social and cultural activities. They are part of the “movimiento okupa” (“squatter movement”), a label created and circulated by the mainstream press.
The crisis is here, let the party begin! April 30, 2009. At first the crisis was just a state of being, a kind of social sadness that paralyzed everything. To break this atmosphere we couldn’t think of anything better than to throw a party. The first thing you need for a party is a good location, so we set out to find a place where social sadness and fear were extremely present. It didn’t take us long to find one: an unemployment office.
Spanish street artist El Rey de la Ruina uses murals and installations to critique inequality and government policies. His works, especially during the pandemic, voiced concerns over healthcare, housing, and public resources in Madrid’s urban spaces.
On 6 January 2012, Metrópolis (TVE 2) broadcast "Activismo y Ficción", a report directed by Enmedio members Leónidas Martín and Núria Campabadal. It looks at a series of creative projects that lie somewhere between fiction and social activism.
El movimiento 15M ha abierto la veda a una protesta insistente, que mantiene la presencia en la calle. Según la delegada de gobierno, Cristina Cifuentes, en Madrid hay ocho manifestaciones diarias.
First cut the banks! In 2012 Bankia declared itself bankrupt and, almost immediately, asked the Government of Spain for €23 billion. The Government accepted, yet that very same week ordered €20,000 million worth of cuts in health and education. It was then that we realized that what they called a crisis was actually a scam. You wouldn’t believe how pissed off we were. So we threw a party, because there is nothing like partying to relieve your anger.
La Casa Invisible project was started in 2007 in Malaga, Spain, when a group of socially involved participants squatted in a run-down building, aiming to eventually claim the legal rights to the property (Moor & Smart, 2016). The space was opened to local artists and creators, quickly becoming a hub for free local music, performances, and seminars as well as creating an important meeting space for social groups (Moor & Smart, 2016).
On Wednesday, December 15th 1976, a referendum was held in Spain. The question was to pass or not to pass the Ley para la Reforma Política (Political Reform Act). This Act was the legal instrument that allowed Spain to transition between Francisco Franco’s dictatorship to a democratic constitutional regime, a parliamentary monarchy.
On November 7, 2010 Pope Benedict XVI visited our city. He would have been better off staying at home. Even before he touched land we had rendered him impotent for life. Yes: im-po-tent.
Comusitària is a Community Cultural Development agency based in Barcelona run by Noemi Rubio and Laia Serra. They work in the production, management, research and dissemination of artistic projects that build social capital and enable citizens to live more active, critical and creative lives.
"Surround Congress”: as soon as we’d heard this, in our minds we were there. To make the Government resign and demand they start a new constituent process seemed like a great idea. We immediately got to work.
Josep Renau Berenguer was a Spanish painter, photomontager, muralist and communist militant.
Renau was the son of an Art teacher. Due to his father’s low income, he had to work various jobs during his youth and teenage years to maintain a middle class position.
The Yayoflautas, or Iaioflautas is an organized group of senior citizens from different cities and regions of Spain. Like many others, the movement started during the first months of life of the 15-M movement, in Barcelona.
Just over a decade ago on May 15, 2011, a wave of social outrage began as the Spanish people collectively decided that they had had enough of the corruption, cuts, and inequalities affecting their country.
Spain’s most devastating environmental disaster took place 20 years ago, on the evening of November 13th, 2002. The Prestige oil spill occurred off the coast of Galicia, part of northern Spain. The spilled oil, in time, covered around 2,000 kilometers of the Galician coast.
The story of the life and death of Jesus is arguably the most ubiquitous story ever told. Translated to every language, vastly circulated, taught in schools all around the world, conservative groups –except for some exemptions, like Liberation Theology- have held monopoly of this narrative for the longest time. However, like every other narrative, it is not totally closed to resignification and oppositional and negotiated readings.
Whether or not they follow politics, it’s fair to assume most people don’t actually read electoral programs. Podemos, Spain’s growing leftwing party, which got nearly 21% of the votes in last year’s elections, doesn’t think that’s good, so it adopted an unusual marketing approach to tackle that problem: it printed the program as an Ikea catalogue (pdf, link in Spanish).
In 2019 before the annual San Fermin festival 54 protesters from around the world representing AnimaNaturalis and PETA held a demonstration against the cruel sport of bullfighting. The celebration of culture and religion subsequent to the murder and torture of dozens of bulls is the spectacle of San Fermin that draws an army of international tourists to the small city of Pamplona.
Las Vulpes was the first spanish punk rock band formed only by women. It was founded in Baracaldo (Vizcaya, Basque Country) in the summer of 1982, as a result of the guitarist´s desire on creating an all women punk band. After a few changes, the final formation consisted on: Loles Vázquez (guitar), Mamen Rodrigo (voice), Begoña Astigarraga (bass) and Lupe Vázquez (drums), all between 17 and 22 years of age.