Onboard the (French) pirate ship METAVILLA

Text on wall of French pavillion occupied by EXYZT
collective reads in Italian, French, Albanian,
English:

The occupation of a palace

By a jubilant crowd is a common image of revoluionary
excesses. It has been witnessed in various forms
throughout the ages, depending on the historical
context. The fact that the image keeps recurring makes
it a ritual and necessary representation, an
ingredient of the revolution itself. It embodies the
hope for justice through the fair redistribution of
space. Occupation is the architectural expression of a
social vision.

Metacity / Metavilla attempts to put this collective
movement into practice. This event is to a classic
architectural exhibition what implementation is to a
concept. The public can experience the architectural
design displayed there, and particularly assess the
practical ideal being presented, not just as a utopian
theory but as a concrete action that needs to be
accomplished. In occupying this national emancipated
pavilion and opening it up to the public in this
unusual way, an architectural act is being performed.
Probably the only such act that can be made in these
times of insecurity and underlying tensions of war.
The welcome of strangers, implacably "other", is more
than ever a relevant act. Happily the joyful city on
show in the pavilion really does exist, here and
elsewhere. This exhibition is just a pointer.

Audio interviews arising out of the French pavilion at
the Venice architectural Biennalle 2006

1 - Hospitality, Tilli and Robins adventure in Mali;
intro to Metavilla; the French pavillion -
http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/imgp4069.wav
2 - The Occupation of a Palace -
http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/imgp4136.wav
3 - the French Pavillion is the best and the craziest
says the German girls -
http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/imgp4173.wav
4 - this place is about la vie, its amazing,
Argentinian Martin -
http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/imgp4351.wav
5 - there is more than just architecture ; kevin -
http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/imgp4360.wav
6 - architecture just for weekends? -
http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/imgp4361.wav
7 - Un autre lieue est possible = Another place is
possible -
http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/imgp4397.wav
8- impressions of the Bienalle so far, from the pirate
ship METAVILLA -
http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/imgp4392.wav

info
METAVILLA pavilion found on EXYZT collective site :
http://www.exyzt.org
THE TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ZONE; Pirate Utopias
by Hakm Bey :
http://www.t0.or.at/hakimbey/taz/taz3a.htm
Paris Commune of 1871 -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune%2C_Martyrs_of_the

IMC-ie dunk has been onboard METAVILLA for some days,
he has travelled over land and sea to get here,
visiting and living in various other places that
perhaps toward which the "exhibition is just a
pointer."

he prevoiusly lived and worked out of
http://www.laconditionpublique.com/ , which is another
place Patrick Bouchain and his crew berthed some time
ago.

he is amongst other things an architect, eco activist,
gardener, land squatter, community media worker,
street partier, wanderer, dreamer and do'er. In
Ireland he worked with a group to attempt to turn
Dublin into an eco city, last years art bienalle
talked a bit about that;
The Irish at Venice - Monks Garden
http://www.irelandvenice.ie/monksgarden.pdf

He came to the Bienalle not expecting much from the
"architectural world", as he feels there is room for
much impovement there. He was not aware of EXYZT's
occupation of the French Pavillion beforehand, but on
meeting old friends on arrival he was made to feel
immediately at home, in fact he was invited to live
there, to participate in the communal activites of
cooking, cleaning, washing; eating, drinking,
sleeping.

He Thinks Metavilla is something super as it points to
the "other" world. But it is still closed, as is the
Bienalle, people only enter if they pay. This should
change, it should be open and free, so all people
could come and participate in what should be an even
greater jubilant crowd occupying this city. And who
knows what that could lead to....

Writing in "Cities, radical urbanism, sqatting, social
centres",
(http://radio.indymedia.org/node/11489 )
On Sep. 04, 2006, he stated;

At the moment there is an ever growing radical network
of autonomous spaces and ways of living that are about
inclusivity, action for improved living conditions,
DIY, self organisation and more: social centres,
squatted villages, squatted city industrial space
turned into organic food gardens, radical radio
centres, reclaimed streets.......

We are wondering whether these ideas will be discussed
in Venice, there was no mention at the london
exhibiton (Future city: experiment and utopia in
architecture 1956 - 2006). For a long time there has
been walls put up against this "alternative" world but
perhaps now it is getting to the time when the
"architectural" world will have to listen to this new
world of autonomous spaces and living, for many the
"architectural" world has become sterile and lifeless,
perhaps now it will have to be seriously confronted,
perhaps Venice will be the meeting ground.

Who knows, maybe the "architectural" world will find
that it is in this "alternative" world that the
critical edge of architecture has been happening for
the last while.
Perhaps we are on the virge of a new age, as the
anthropologist David Graeber said "But then, the
anarchist century has only just begun."