Abstract
In 2008, as the storms of the financial crash started to blow, Isabelle Fremeaux and Jay Jordan deserted the metropolis and their academic jobs, embarking on a journey across Europe in search for postcapitalist utopias. They wanted their art activism to no longer be uprooted.
They arrived at a place French politicians had declared “lost to the republic”, known by those who inhabited it as la ZAD (the ‘zone to defend’): a messy but extraordinary canvas of commoning, illegally occupying 4,000 acres of wetlands where an international airport was planned.
In 2018, the 40-year-long struggle snatched an incredible victory, defeating the infrastructure project through a powerful cocktail that merged creation and resistance.