Update on activities in la Eskalera Karakola
June 2006
In September 2005 we began construction work on the first of
the two shop-front commercial spaces we had been ceded by the city
government. Our initial plan to do
an intensive 3 month work-camp proved unrealistic and the construction extended
from September to March, with work being done by small teams of participants in
the Karakola and other volunteers, coordinated by a monthly rotation of
fore-women. Along the way, we
learned plumbing, masonry, electricity, welding, flooring, tilingŠand by April
had converted a bare cavern of bricks into a bright and appealing work-space,
accruing plenty of debts along the way.
We held an Œend of construction¹ party to inaugurate the
space at the end of April and since that time have been gradually filling in
the space itself: moving and setting up the archive of papers and books,
purchasing and installing computer equipment, etc. The space is divided into one main meeting/activity room,
one small meeting/archive room, a soundproofed audio-visual studio and a
bathroom. Though the projects
operating in this space are still taking shape, it is already getting a lively
use: in the last weeks we inaugurated ŒTodas
a Cien: Agency of Precarious Affairs,¹ a center for self-organizing against
poverty, vulnerability and precariousness which emerged out of the
activist-research project Precarias a la Deriva, and have held a cycle of seven self-training workshops intended to
provide us with resources for that agency. Associated with the agency are a number of agit-prop type
projects: a radio-novela, ³Vivir a full,² which plays with the genre of
melodrama in order to approach the daily life situations and conflicts which
affect us, and the photo/video
adventures of Azien, the precarious superheroine who accompanies us in
actions and other public interventions.
Other projects currently getting started in the Karakola
include: ŒLas Bonitas¹, a feminist theatre troupe; ŒEnvideas¹, a video archive
and hopefully soon production and distribution point; ŒSababia,¹a migrant
youth organization working against discrimination in schools;
ŒTransSisterRadio,¹ a radio and DJ collective, as well as various short-term
projects or interventions such as a recent presentation
on Queeruption 9 in Tel Aviv, a seminar with the feminist sociologist Ruth
Mestre, the organization of the
Œgender¹ section of the annual ŒSeven Days of Social Struggle¹, presentations
of the ŒUnderground Railroad¹ network formed in the European caravan to Ceuta,
etc.