Dear friends
In July this year, The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, a UK based art activists’’ collective (www.labofii.net) was commissioned by the Copenhagen Centre for Contemporary Art ( www.kunsthallennikolaj.dk/en/ ) to make a new piece of work for Rethink, (www.rethinkclimate.org) an exhibition of “political” art during the December UN climate change summit. Last week the gallery pulled out claiming it could no longer continue to support the project for “practical reasons”.
In fact they were frightened that the project involved non-violent civil disobedience and that this might be disapproved of by their funders. We feel that the December’s mobilisations in Copenhagen are a landmark in history, where trying to “play safe” is not a luxury we can afford. This was a political pulling out not a practical issue. We are writing to ask for your support so that despite the obstacles of cowardice the project can still go ahead.
The project Putting the fun between your legs: The Bike Bloc, is a collaboration between The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination and the UK Climate Camp (www.climatecamp.org.uk). The idea is to design and build a new tool of creative resistance for the RECLAIM POWER mobilisations taking place in Copenhagen on the 16th of December, a day of civil disobedience supported by over 200 organisations many from the global south.(www.climate-justice-action.org). Made from hundreds of recycled bikes, The Bike Bloc will merge device of mass transportation and pedal powered resistance machine, postcapitalist bike gang and art bike carnival.
Bike hackers, artists, welders, climate campers and engineers will be working together to design and build The Bike Bloc across two cities: Bristol (Arnolfini Gallery 15th – 30th Nov, – as part of C-words exhibition - www.arnolfini.org.uk and somewhere in Copenhagen (4th- 18th Dec.) The trouble is we no longer have a space or support resources in Copenhagen, which with only 8 weeks to go puts us under immense pressure.
If you have any idea of places, organisations, or, of collectives that would be interested in hosting this project, and are prepared to walk the talk, or would like to be involved please contact us as soon as possible.