ARTOZKI, ART SPACE

Today, on the eleventh day of resistance, they held a press conference in Artozki, the village in the Irati valley, threatened with demolition to make way for the Itoiz dam. Villagers from the surrounding area took part, along with the head of Hydrology at the University of Zaragoza, Javier Martínez Gil and members of the collective Solidari@s con Itoitz. At the press conference the Artozki Art Space initiative was presented.

With this initiave we hope to turn the threatened village into a “living space open to art, creativity and criticism”. Artists such as Zumeta have already begun to donate works of art to be part of the living museum, and others, such as Fermin Muguruza have announced that they will be performing in the village this weekend, which will be full of events (see full programme).

Solidari@s con Itoitz have re-stated their call for people to come to the village and help stop its demolition. They call to trades unions, collectives and social figures to help keep the resistance going. Another world is possible, but you have to work at it day after day. right now another world is being created in the Artozki-Artezki Arts space.

We have been here for eleven days now and the police harrassment is unending. Today, before the press release started, the Guardia Civil riot police arrived to identify all the journalists and photographers present and make their presence felt in the town. Some of the officers greeted the Solidari@s mediators like old colleagues [sic] and said they expected an invite to “the next barbaque”. Nice.

At the press conference, the villagers of Artozki have re-stated that they abandoned the village against their will and said that they are being punished for their resistance to the dam: “They don’t demolish villages to fill dams anywhere else in the world. Nevertheless, they are doing it here, even though the dam is awaiting a ruling from the Human Rights Tribunal in Strasbourg and the results of the filling tests”. At the same time they applauded the “bravery” of the people who are resisting the demolition of the village.

Martínez Gil stated that the Itoiz dam and the Navarra Canal are “an embarrassment, a black hole for the Navarran economy and a clear demonstration of the authoritarianism of our government”.

At the end of the evening more Guardia Civil officers were spotted in the surrounding hills around Lakabe and Usotz.