oct21: Zapatista Journey for Life

2021

ZAPATISTA JOURNEY FOR LIFE
listening encounter | diary

A delegation of the Zapatista Army from National Liberation decided a few months ago, despite Covid-19, to reverse the colonial journey of old imperial Europe to Latin America. From Mexico they set out for Europe to embark on their incessant “Journey for Life” and landed in Vienna on September 14, 2021. A week later, on September 22nd, another delegation arrived at Vienna to join the Zapatistas on the “Journey for Life:” a group of wo/men* from National Indigenous Congress (CNI), of the Indigenous Government Council (CIG), and representatives of the Peoples’ Front in Defense of the Land and Water of Puebla, Morelos and Tlaxcala (FPDTA).

Together with the students of the Studio for Post-conceptual art practices at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna we extended an invitation to the delegates to meet and share their expierences of their with us. On October 6, 2021 we had the immense privilege that 6 members of the delegation accepted our invitation. For three hours, the strong group of women* told an oral history not commonly known. We listened and were asked not to take notes, to record in our memory the genealogy of the period from 1984 to 1994 in translation from Spanish to English, the events that led to the foundation of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, EZLN), often referred to as the Zapatistas since 1994.

October 6, 2021

Vienna, Austria