This video has timestamped descriptions to allow viewers to jump to particular topics and sections. Links will open the video in YouTube.
Who are you and what is your relationship with the collective Enmedio? 0:00:17
When, where, and why was Enmedio created? 0:00:35
Why the name Enmedio? 0:02:07
Your group has described itself in the following way: “It’s a group of visual professionals (designers, photographers, film makers, artists) who, unsatisfied with the lack of connections between art and political action, have decided to abandon our usual territory of work and situate ourselves in the in-between, nowhere in particular and everywhere at the same time.” Is this a volunteer working group? 0:02:32
Does the collective have salaried personnel? 0:04:02
How are decisions made in this group? 0:06:20
You’re a nonprofit cultural association– why have you chosen to take this legal form? 0:07:11
Why didn’t you choose to take the form of a cooperative? 0:07:42
How are your activities financed? Do you receive help from public institutions? 0:08:25
The climate that has arisen along with 15M indicates that there is an important cultural paradigm shift occurring. For many collectives it means the beginning of self-organization and for others it means a space for rethinking oneself. What has it meant for Enmedio? 0:10:50
How is Enmedio as a collective connected with the sphere of image creation? 0:12:05
Studying the work that you’ve been doing in the area of cultural projection, it seems to me that a sense of humor, playfulness, and celebration are central elements to your creative process. Do you think this differentiates you from the work of dismantling hegemonic relations that other collectives are doing? 0:15:11
Frequently you ask yourselves about the concrete effect of artivist work in the political reality. What is your interpretation of that question? 0:17:51
From your perspective, what is the best path for creating collective imaginaries that are alternative to the liberal hegemonic imaginary? 0:22:47
Thinking about some of your interventions and symbols– the designs in the escraches, the “No somos números (We’re not numbers)” campaign, the party in Bankia, the party in INEM, the “Discongreso,” The Reflectors… How do you delimit the realities that you want to resignify? 0:31:07
Who are the people that participate in your interventions? 0:32:06
Thinking about your interventions, have you ever had to face any kind of complaint or legal problem? 0:37:02
You write the following about the Enmedio center: “This center and its constant program of courses and workshops has a clear objective: make creation a form of action; a form of direct action.” Can you tell us more about the activity and function of this center? 0:42:21
What kinds of people attend your workshops and activities? 0:46:29
Do you think that, in some way, Enmedio is involved with informal education? 0:52:15
As a professor, how do you deal with that paradox? 0:58:26
What would growth look like for this collective? 1:03:55
These are some intervention tools created by Enmedio, can you explain them to us? 1:04:36
1. Apptivismo 1:04:45
2. Acti-FI 1:05:32
3. Bellas Vallas (Beautiful Fences) 1:06:09
How do you keep up your hopes in times of political discontent and overall insecurity? 1:09:55
The Enmedio collective symbolizes a space that has not been defined and is always on the move. It is the search for a space in which that which you know and like to do finds a meaning that seems right according to your understanding of existence, living, and ‘being here.’ It is a space in which the borders between the personal and the public, between friendship and camaraderie, truly dissolve. It is a way of life that is nearly the end result of what we have been constructing amongst ourselves for all this time. We don’t take images themselves for granted– we wonder about what happens prior to an image, and what happens with the image afterwards. What motivates us always is, “How do we make an image together?” and the question of whether, in the act of creating an image together, an experience is created that surpasses the image itself. Something opens– the exploration of the communitarian aspect of “being together,” the first step towards sharing a view about the world and about things.
