Autonomous Factory Rog in Ljubljana, Slovenia, is supporting the initiative and the fight of zadaistes in this time of general repression happening everywhere around us.
Especially in the context of self-governed, autonomous and alternative spaces. The importance of squats and squatted land initiatives like ZAD lies in enabling cultural and political diversity by constructing the space and environment where it is possible to think about the future of land ownership and food production outside of commodifying and cooptating environment - the state itself.
ZAD shows what it means to be in a stateless situation. Even though it happened to be found on the territory of a sovereign nation state, the state apparatus doesn’t operate within the premises. The meaning of such an absence is not understood immediately even upon arriving at the field and forest ladden area. Yes, you see barricades, most wonderful houses, and some that seem to defy gravity, obscure statues and intricately built common rooms. Some circuses and mostly farms. Only after a while it becomes apparent that even without the physical presence of it, the state remains within as a state of mind. Stale.
When you enter as a visitor you are put into one of the farms that offer free residence to travelers. You stay there for a week and then another house welcomes you. You have ponds, where children of the forest live and camps with punks from argentina. There's rap collectives and people who derail trains. ZAD project started as a fight against an airfield, with the support of local farmers who demonstrated with tractors but it turned into an area bigger than two square kilometres with around 100 dwellings.
While Autonomous Factory Rog is as well facing eviction due to land ownership lawsuit being filed by the municipality which is pushing us out with enormous lawsuit, we still continue fighting with the idea of a possibility of a better and brighter future. This wouldn’t be possible without solidarity from other similar spaces around the world. United we can fight the state/municipal oppression, united we can win.
Hold on ZAD, viva la resistance!
Users of Autonomous Factory Rog