Seminar
Learning from the journey of the Zapatistas (Viaje por la vida) through Europe. Images, words and representations for an urgent anti-colonialism
22 April 2025
Centro Social Tres Peces Tres (Madrid)
In 2021 the Journey for Life (Viaje por la vida) took place, an initiative of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Mexico), to meet with activist collectives fighting against neoliberalism in the context of the acute eco-social crisis in Europe.
During the intense transnational preparatory work and also during the meetings themselves, thousands of documents, programs, projections and objects were generated: all this constitutes a huge common heritage that can be explored from different angles. Within this context, the question of representations is of great importance: although it is true that we live in the empire of the two-dimensional image transmitted digitally, the Journey for Life itself had a corporeal dimension that can be interpreted from the point of view of performativity. The journey was an inverted reenactment of the misnamed “conquest”, which introduces a reading against the grain of colonial history: the Zapatistas traveled from Abya Yala to reverse history, to offer their tools and practices to the activists of the former metropolis and to work together on the road to another possible Europe.
Based on the visual productions and protest actions carried out in Madrid during the Journey for Life, this seminar addresses the production and use of images and counterfactual narratives incited by Zapatista travelers, as well as their limits and challenges.
10.30-11.00 Presentation of the day
11.00-12.00 Yretiemble Madrid
12.00-12.15 Coffee break
12.15-13.15 Lola Sepúlveda (elsaltodiario.com and CEDOZ)
13.15-13.30 Discussion
13.30-15.30 Lunch
15.30-16.30 Valeria Caballero (Curadora Independiente)
16.30-16.45 Coffee Break
16.45-17.45 Sara Buraya Boned (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid)
17.45-18.30 Conclusion and discussion. Respondent: Jorge Gaupp (Universidad Complutense Madrid)
Organization: Julia Ramírez Blanco (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Maria Ruido (artista, Universitat de Barcelona), Valeria Caballero (Indipendent Curator), Fabiola Martinez (Saint Louis University, Madrid) and Tobias Locker (Saint Louis University, Madrid).
Seminar organized as part of the project Political Images and New Worlds to Build: The Visual Culture of the Zapatistas’ Journey for Life in Europe / NOVA-IMAGO-ZAP of Labex SMS and the international research platform Modernidad(es) Descentralizada(s), with the support of Centro Social Tres Peces Tres and the Saint Louis University, Madrid.
Image: Photo of the event “¡No nos conquistaron!”, 13 August 2021, Puerta del Sol, Madrid.
