We Are 'Nature' Defending Itself

Entangling Art, Activism and Autonomous Zones

Jay Jordan author Isabelle Fremeaux author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Pluto Press

Published:20th Nov '21

£14.99

Available for immediate dispatch.

We Are 'Nature' Defending Itself cover

In 2008, as the storms of the financial crash blew, Isabelle Fremeaux and Jay Jordan deserted the metropolis and their academic jobs, traveling across Europe in search of post-capitalist utopias. They wanted their art activism to no longer be uprooted.

They arrived at a place French politicians had declared lost to the republic, otherwise know as the zad (the zone to defend): a messy but extraordinary canvas of commoning, illegally occupying 4,000 acres of wetlands where an international airport was planned. In 2018, the 40-year-long struggle snatched an incredible victory, defeating the airport expansion project through a powerful cocktail that merged creation and resistance.

Fremeaux and Jordan blend rich eyewitness accounts with theory, inspired by a diverse array of approaches, from neo-animism to revolutionary biology, insurrectionary writings and radical art history.



Published in collaboration with the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest.

'We need stories of victory! We need stories of transformative imagination and wild adventures that somehow succeed against all odds. Jay and Isabelle think about organizing and activism like nobody else. They've given us more than an account--they've created a new myth that has the added benefit of being true'

-- Star

ISBN: 9780745345871

Dimensions: 215mm x 110mm x 11mm

Weight: 142g

160 pages