Building Spaces

ak, 07.02.2003 09:19

Taking a look at Can Mas Deu, a squat on the outskirts of Barcelona, thinking about spaces, the anti-globalisation movement and shifts in emphasis....

Can Mas Deu – meaning house of many springs in Catalan - is an incredible squat on the outskirts of Barcelona. Empty for over fifty three years some of the sections of the awesome sprawling building date from 1610. The valley has been a leper colony since roman times and the building functioned as hospital run by nuns from earlier last century. On the edge of a national park, fifteen minutes walk from the end of a train line, Can Mas Deu inhabits an interesting position between the city and the country. From its very outset Can Mas Deu has been an incredibly international space and has hosted numerous convergences around a variety of projects grounding itself firmly in social movement .

As you walk up the hill from the end of the Canyelles train line the road turns from asphalt to gravel and you pass under a hand painted banner announcing a recent community planting day you catch a glimpse of Can Mas Deu through the pines and gums. Even people who have been involved since the start, living through the chaos and dysfunction and trying times that come with any ambitious intentional community project, contend to experiencing the same heart flip flop every time they make the ascent back to the space.

22nd December 2001 saw the building reclaimed, under two months later after frantic work on the space it played host to the EYFA (European Youth For Action) and Rising Tide annual winter meeting, from the start grounding the project firmly in Europe wide social justice and environmental networks. From the outset the aim was to be as self sufficient as possible, and to be as sustainable as possible through this process. This means that food is recycled (skipped/dumpster dived), that the age-old water system has been restored, terrace gardens weeded and replanted after fifty years of disuse, composting toilets installed, a pedal power washing machine hooked up and a great deal of random found objects transformed and reused on site. It also means that there is a huge emphasis on being open and accessible – so regular open days and work camps are held – and all decisions are made on consensus by the collective living and working in the space.

The terrace gardens which surround the building are being cultivated according to permaculture principles and provide gardening space for both the Can Mas Deu household and the local barrio (suburb). The level of community involvement is incredible, and higher than any squat I have ever visited before. Rather than just the usual suspects being involved, here you find people of all ages and backgrounds getting their hands dirty in the gardens or documenting the renovations, delivering supplies such as used bikes, or chatting under a tree leaning on their walking sticks. Regular planting days are held where everyone with a plot is invited to participate and many other local residents get involved. Usually a huge paella is cooked over an open fire by the newly cleared water tank/swimming pool and the once neglected valley echoes with life and activity.

Can Mas Deu receives some flak from the local squatting community, and it is hard to tell why, but may have to do with the fact that they ran a huge media campaign during their eviction threat gaining a national profile, and have such a high level of involvement from the local community – who although incredibly radical in their own way are not coming from the tradition anarcho scene, or even traditional left. In some ways, probably due to the fact that there are gardens and a lot of random art around the place, Can Mas Deu can be seen to have somewhat of a ‘hippie aesthetic’ which may offend the sensibilities of some dogmatic squatters.

In April, only four months after the squatting, police raided Can Mas Deu to try to evict the fledgling community. An incredible three day resistance incurred. Over five hundred people converged on the place, but were unable to break the police line, so instead set up camp in solidarity with the ten or so people who were locked on, suspended from chairs and mattresses hanging from the walls and swinging from a tripod on the roof! The police refused to let people from the barrio deliver food to those blockading and suddenly the story broke the national media. After three freezing days of resistance the police left and Can Mas Deu was won! Legal proceedings continue - if the group is evicted this centuries old building will be demolished to make way for the development of luxury apartments. In this context, the position of Can Mas Deu in the belt between the city and the national park means that occupation is also preventing destruction of the local forests and maintaining the space for community participation not private apartments.

Spaces never exist in isolation and their history and evolution can often be traced through the threads and histories of social movement. In Melbourne the Northcote Bowls Club and Gold Street warehouse which were used in preparation for the s11 protests, and the Irene warehouse a community arts space which also provides much needed space for a range of socio-political projects are some such examples. Of course these spaces are not limited to merely explicit political activity, but it is important to acknowledge that elements of their evolution and inspiration can be traced through the emergence of new networks and the protest movement of recent years.

Although there is a long and inspiring tradition of squatting across Europe (with distinct histories and cultures in different places) it can be argued that the some of the newfound emphasis on building ‘spaces’ emerges from the newly established anti-capitalist networks in Europe. This can also be said of many of the spaces in Australia and the networks which evolved to provide the energy and impetus for such spaces to grow. In many ways these more permanent spaces were also influenced by the creation of “convergence spaces” at each mass protest (in Melbourne Gold Street and the old Channel 31 building were used for such purposes during s11). And it was through the organising for these huge events that many people met for the first time through the AWOL networks or in some of these self managed spaces such as the Bowls Club. Similarly, many of the people involved in Can Mas Deu first met and worked together in Prague during the 2000 “s26” convergence against the IMF and World Bank.

The emphasis on ‘spaces’ can also be seen to be a distinct attempt by people to build longer term projects rather than simply work on ‘days of action’ - moving away from a culture of preparing for months for just a few days to one of more permanence. This emphasis is also paralleled in the outcomes of the Peoples Global Action conference in Bolivia in 2001 where ‘sustained campaigns’ were developed, signifying a shift in emphasis and depth of grassroots movement’s coordination. The key thing is that these spaces are not separate from the radicalism and the networks that inspired and catalysed them – in many ways they are attempts to articulate and embody the very themes that people developed during these mass convergences. Furthermore the move to setting up more long term spaces is in step with the desire among many people to create rather than always oppose.

Some people have suggested that the 9-11 events in NYC were a huge blow for the “anti-corporate globalisation” movement, backing up this critique by suggesting that there are less people at these convergences and ‘summit hopping’ seems to have died down. While of course horrific new legislation has been passed in many countries around the world and repression mounts, I would suggest that this is far too simplistic and negative a conclusion to reach. I would argue that people have met face to face, established networks, worked together to build dynamic and incredible days of action, complete with food, spaces to work, sleep and live, a living breathing community entity, and are now concerned with creating more permanent spaces in which to build their lives and communities, on their own terms, as opposed to being reactionary to dates set by corporate and governmental officials.

So perhaps the numbers aren’t as visible on the streets (such as the small turn out at the WTO protests in Sydney) but the work goes on and people are putting down roots, trying to enact in their day to day lives the kinds of spaces that only previously existed for a couple of days. This is not to say that people have turned their backs on actions and campaigns to go and garden in the hills. In fact the incredibly exciting thing about Can Mas Deu is, just as it sits in the valley between the city and the country, it maintains a unique position between creation and opposition - at once building a dynamic creative and inclusive community space which is based on radical and confrontational principles, thus breaking down the dichotomy that can be drawn between ‘days of actions’ and ‘sustained campaigns’. It is an inspired and humble project which is sending ripples further than it dreams.

 http://canmasdeu.net

1. Taking a lead from Bell Hooks and Jamie Heckert I refer to social movement rather than maintaining that boundaries can be drawn around particular ‘social movements’.
2. People’s Global Action (PGA) is a network for spreading information and coordinating actions between grassroots movements around the world. Every two years they hold an international conference. There is both a Asia and Pacifica network: See  http://www.agp.org