...
I am so inspired by The Lab Rats, who have incredible stories to tell about their desert travels (you should read their website). They also are in the hip
hop group Combat Wombat.
Reclaim The Streets(pictured)
This global movement is about taking back the streets for Culture in the fullest sense: for restoring community to our lives,
restoring joy and spontaneity to the city streetscape. Each RTS is a commentary on urban psycho-geography: the emptiness of
our everyday urban isolation.
Each RTS dance party/ parade represents a break with everyday patterns of normality: It obstructs, as well as creates: it
is an opening from which new possibilities can germinate. In my understanding, much of the music, imagery and actions are
influenced by surrealism, playfulness or just a good sense of the absurd, aimed at surprising and breaking down the barriers
of disconnection that are so noticibly part of Sydney's car culture.
I wrote a poem here about the 2002 RTS, before the World Trade Organisation's 'Mini-Ministerial' in Sydney.
Over the last few years, the police have sometimes been quite heavy-handed, indiscriminately hurting people at many of these
demonstrations. It is important that everybody understands the importance of looking out for and supporting eachother, as
well as being witnesses and first aid assistants in formal and informal capacities.
Such an act as taking back the streets for celebration is not only symbolically and politically powerful, but also is an act
of physical power. The police feel threatened by disorder: they are therefore wary of RTS and can easily get out of control
if they are not monitored.
