Handbook for street activism by Loesje

8/14/2019 Handbook for street activism by Loesje

1/43


2/43

before reading

Dear reader,

In your hands you have the Handbook or Creative Activism. It is de-signed to be an inspireing and useull guide to making street actions. It isdivided in ve chapters: Inspiration, Brainstorming, Preparation, Actionand Reection. Tese chapters are at the same time steps o creating anaction.

Inside every chapter there is an introductory text which will oer you

general ideas, rules and guidelines or every phase o your work. Aterthat, comes our practical working experience together with some criticalreviews on it. It is ollowed by concrete, short tips or chapters.

Tis Handbook should inspire you and help you along the rocky road ostreet activism. We tried to squeeze it in a size that could t your pocket.So eel ree to take it anywhere you go and to make a good use o it!

Enjoy!

INdEX

before reading 4

INdEX 5

INTROduction 7

Inspiration 8

Intro 10

feel free 20

Brainstorming 22

INTRO 24

brainstorming methods 26

Group REPORTS 28

Preparation 36

INTRO 38

Group REPORTS 42

preparation tips 52

Action 54INTRO 56

Group REPORTS 58

action tips 68

reflection 70

INTRO 72

Group REPORTS 74

evaluation paper example 82


3/43

2006 A.D. Armenia

Close to the mountain where a guy with a beard once stranded with hisship ull o animals, a group o youngsters arrived rom Armenia, Geor-

gia, Germany and the Netherlands. Tey wanted to learn more abouteach other, their countries, their habits and also about creative activismas a way to change the world. During ten days we brainstormed, preparedand perormed several street actions and came to a handull o conclu-

sions and ideas about creative activism.

We didnt want to keep all this or ourselves, so we created this book toshare our experiences and ideas with you and maybe inspire you to do

your own actions! Actions that we present here are simple and unique asthey were created in just a ew days. Tese models are easy to implementin your own town or city, with local, regional or global issues, and with

your own additions and twists.

Tis books is about people, emotions, and cultures and experiences wehad with them. Its about laughing, singing, dancing, talking, shoutingand crying. About great ood, bad ood, great parties and small ailures.

Its about leaving your country, seeing the world rom a distance and romvery close at the same time.

Have un reading using this handbook. Keep improving your actions andexpressing your ideas untill we solve all the problems in the world.

Te crew

INTROduction


4/43

Inspiration


5/43

In

spirat

ion

You are sitting in your avorite chair, watch-ing a beautiul painting on your wall and

holding a hot cup o tea. But soon all thatcomort starts to bother you and you startwondering... Maybe I could do somethingwith mysel and this world?. But beore

you run out to the street and start shouting,spend some time in nding what is reallythe thing that makes you move. It is impor-tant to eel and to know why do we do thethings we do.

Inspiration: the process o being mentallystimulated to do or eel something, esp. to

do something creative

Inspiration... thats the word we are lookingor. Inspiration is a starting point o everymental process and consequently, o a streetaction as well. Inspiration is all around us,so it shouldnt be that hard. A story o ariend, an article in the newspaper, a trip toa city nearby or a place ar, ar away. But

the real inspiration is born very near, in our-selves. Tats why we should always try tosee and to eel our surrounding, to open - tolet ourselves be inspired.

And than, just beore you die out laughing,close yoursel in a room or a week, or cryon a riends shoulder or hours, you can alsodecide to make a street action.

On the next pages, you can nd what in-

spires us and how we look at inspiration.Tere is also some blank space or you towrite or draw some o your own inspira-tion.

Good luck!


6/43

10 11

ADDICTION

CANTGET

ENOUGH

OFIT

DOPOLITICIANSCOMEFROM

THESAMEPLANET

ASWEDO

EVERYDAY

AFTERWORK

HEHUNGHISSUIT

BACKINTHECLOSET

ANDDRESSEDUP

LIKEA

SUNFLOWER

POORMAN

SOMUCHMON

EY

ANDNOTHING

TODREAM

ABOUT

BORDER

YOUR

BORDERS

IDOLS

INSPIRE

INSANITY


7/43

Streets of inspiration

Toughts on and from the street.

Te street is there or transport.

Sometimes it can me make angry,i I see all these cars blocking our reedom.

Sometimes it can make me happy,i I see a little plant growing between the asphalt.

Breaking to the grey strong road and showing a bit o green.Tis little plant tells me that I also can do something.

A small thing, but still somethingto change my world how I would like it to be.

And then I look again to the street.I dont see the street only or transport anymore,

But a total playground, everything, everyone is there.And nobody can control it, even i they try.

Te street is a place where you can see so muchTings changing, things moving and little corners.

Little corners with hiding spotsHiding spots with little surprises.

So lets go on an excursion.Not ar, maybe the street you pass everyday.

And I try to look again,new diferent.

Above the shops,Behind the commercials,

Low to the ground,High to the sky,

Everywhere and nowhere,Combining and mixing.

Suddenly I got something,

An impression

A toughtCalled an idea

Ten I think again o the plant.Do something with your idea.

1 1


8/43

At some point in our lives wewonder why we are living it. Itruly believe that each person isliving or a purpose. We alwayssearch or the purpose: some doin the people they love, some atthe places they go and some inthe things they do. I wouldnt beinventing the wheel to say that

we are judged by our doings and

thats what leaves a trace, a goodone or a bad one. Its all in ourhands to make it all worth living,or to make everything as worth-less as it can be. Its not easy tond inspiration, because its mo-ment that is hard to catch.

At times we eel inspired to

change everything, but when itcomes to the time to act, we hesi-tate, are lazy, or think o otherexcuses, but lie is too short to just sit around and watch it goby. We need to live it, we need toparticipate in the lives o peoplethat need our help, and we needto speak our minds, because whatmay seem nonsense to you might

be great inspiration or anotherperson.

When doing some kind o ac-tivity, be it community service,street action, charity or other,you always get various looksrom people. Some look at you in-

terested, some indierent andsome think you have lost yourmind. Others may see encour-agement, support and courage,consolation or a helping hand.In everything we do, we alwaysaect other peoples lives.

We may not notice it, but achild that saw us doing a streetaction or more green space in

the city may remember us or along time. A teenager that wasinvolved in a undraising activ-ity may look at you with be-lie and hope. Believe me, youwont orget those looks or along time, because they give

you a eeling o meaning owhat you do and why you do.

I have come to realize that Ilook or ways to change my lieand lie o others to the bet-ter, in the ways accessible orme at the moment. But thereare times I ask mysel, i I do

enough. Tat is when I ndinspiration and energy to domore and achieve more. Teamount o people aected byyour doings isnt that impor-tant. Changing the look oat least one person is alreadyan achievement. Feeling theresponsibility or the uture ocoming generations makes us

act, and i we dont make anyeort we wont have any rightto be dissatised with the u-ture, because we didnt take thechance o being the change.

Inspiration is all aroundyou, and you need to catch the

moment. Be it through somegood music, a glass o wine, along walk, or a beautiul view

o city lights, or the seaAt the sunset o our lives,we take a look back and re-think o the path we walked,o the choices we made, at thechances we took and missed.Its moments that we remem-

ber, the moments that tookour breath away. Te ashbacko your lie is all in those mo-ments and sometimes thereis just so many o those mo-ments, that the ashback istoo long Tat is when you seeyour purpose as clearly as you

couldnt imagine it in the be-ginning o the way. Its a goodeeling I suppose, but I wantto eel it mysel too and I wishyou good luck in walking yourpath to that moment.

Sincerely,

Stranger

14 1


9/43

Tis is a simple game,which could have great con-sequences.

First to know that inspi-ration is partly about watch-ing the reality in a dierent

way. You try to take awaysome lters that you nor-mally have and suddenly a

street is no street anymore.It is a place with solid sur-ace where a lot o thing canhappen. Youll se some ow-ers growing, people walking,cars driving up and down...And o course a lot o inter-

action.Goal o the alien game is

to walk around some place

with a pen and a paper andto try looking at the thingsaround without as muchlters as possible. Youllse suraces, shapes, livingcreatures, moving objects,

without any pre-knowledge.Tan write down everythingyou see as i you come rom

another planet and you aremaking a report or superi-ors on a home planet.

Later on, you can use thethings you have ound andput them in some perspec-tive; maybe get inspired by

some ordinary things.

Everybody has inciden-tal moments o inspira-tion. Tats nothing special.Tose are special who can

see the great value o thosemoments. Tose who takethem serious. It doesntmatter i you just let thosemoments come and go; youcan necer have a waist oinspiration. But like most

things in your lie, you canget better at it. Write downyour idea, draw the imageyou have on your mind, act

out your ideas, as oten aspossible and youll see; morestructure will come, you willget better at it and maybemost important o all, youwill have more moments oinspiration.

Light bulbs pop up aboveyour head... it happenedagain. Teres an idea insideyour head just like that. Butwhat triggered it, how didit get there? Is there some

way to envoque it or can youblock it when you dont wantit? Get inspired but dont

overkill yoursel.Inspiration is not an ex-

clusive thing or big artistsbut can happen to anyoneat any time. Some peopleeven get so inspired theyhave to keep on writting all

their ideas down and hardlyget any sleep. Shutting thisdown is quite hard and whywould you do it anyway i itproduces so much nice andcreative things? But still, ev-eryone should get some rest

and eventually your headwill be to occupied with be-

ing tired to produce creativ-ity anymore. So, dont worry,inspiration wont get youdown, just let it in. And iyou really dont want to beinspired, youre probably notopening to anything.

But i you do want to getinspired, the rst thing to dois to open up. Look at details,expect the unexpected, donttake the things you see, eelor hear or granted. ry to

look at everyday lie rom adierent perspective. Peoplehave the reedom o inter-

pretation. Tis can cause mis-understandings, but it canalso cause very joyull situ-ations. Dont limit yourselto doing everything perect.Mistakes are the best waysto learn as it is oten said.

Maybe you will get inspiredby a little paper with thingwritten on it that is lying in apile o leaves, maybe not.

O course, it is not onlycute, sweet hippy-like thingsthat give you ideas! Seeing

the news about the thingsgoing on in the world, things

that can make you angry,these can inspire you too.ry to see the possibilitiesthat are within you reach andthose o others. Combineideas to inspire eachother,create new ideas, make it unand keep the positive spirit.

1716

Everyone can do it Alien game

Make it serious

17


10/43

feel free

11

Tis is ree space or you to draw, paint or write your inspiration. Tis is ree space or you to draw, paint or write your inspiration.

FREE

SPACE

FREE

SPACE


11/43

Brainstorming


12/43

Bra

instor

ming

You have passed a moment o great in-spiration. Tousand ideas are knocking

the doors o your mind and as many but-teries want to get out o your stomach.You eel determined to do something, tochange the world. You are inspired (ocourse the previously mentioned num-bers vary rom your personality andsituation you are in).

So what you need now is to get closerto the image o the action you want to

make. It is a long and conusing way tothat place, and i we add the act that itis usually several people doing one actionthan the need or some structure is quiteobvious. So lets take a walk...

Process o discussing specic issues orsearching solutions or a problem in a

group is called brainstorming. But be-ore we let the winds blow through ourminds we need to have some rame or

that. When it comes to making street ac-tion than discussing the ollowing issuesmight help.

opic

When making a street action there arenumerous topics that can be addressed;environmental, political, social or cul-tural situation, gender issues, place androle o some social groups such as young-

sters, women, people with special needsand many, many more. While discussingchosen topics everyone in the group willstart to eel attracted to one or anothertopic more. Tat is a good starting point

or choosing which topics to address.

Surrounding

When you have a topic o your action you should try to put it ina specic context. Tat context is actually the surrounding o

your action; it can be a country, region, city or a specic street.At this point it is important to guide a discussion towards thediscovery o problems and issues that are actual in that sur-rounding, were they hidden or exposed. Te action with itsmessage, goals and methods should t in its background.

Ourselves

But actions are not only about solving or addressing problems

but also about expressing ourselves, our ideas, visions and eel-ings. In the next phase every participant in the action shouldbrainstorm about his or her own place. Everyone should aska question: How do I eel about the topic? and How can Icontribute?.

Action

Somewhere in between previous conclusions your action willnd place. Now with some guides created, eel ree to think oall the possible actions, games and orms o expression that

you could use and write them down.

On the next pages rst you can read more about process o

brainstorming in general. Tere are also some pre-designedmethods o brainstorming which could help you along theway.

Ater that we wrote about brainstorming in our groups. op-ics o the group were: Globalization, Environment, Politics andCulture. Every group used dierent method and went in dier-ent directions. At the end So, the paper is blank and big. Andit is all yours to ll it in.

Good luck Captain!


13/43

Brainstorming - General

Brainstorming is usually associated with wide expression o ideas.But it is more than that: it is an art or arranging ideas. Te processgoes as ollows:

Ater a problem or a question has been dened, participantsare asked to think o as many ideas as possible and write themdown. All ideas are good and nothing will be rejected on ore-hand.

Ater an agreed duration all notes are collected and one by one

discussed. Group all the ideas and suggestions which seems tobelong to each other. Sometimes at that stage, still more ideascome to light. You should also consider those.

Gradually originate groups o solutions. Te ideas which arecalled the most oten are not per se the best, but are generallypart o the most obvious solution.

Discuss with the group collections o ideas and decide withwhich proposals you want to proceed.

a)

b)

c)

d)

4

brainstorming methods

IDA-method

IDA is short or Ideal-Tresholds-Action-method. Te undamen-tal idea is that you reason rom the ideal situation and work to-ward an action plan. Te method can be used or each random

subject. When you end up with a too complex list o things to dothen try to separate your subject in what smaller subjects.Ideal

Formulate the ideal situation. Forget all about reality and try totake the restrictions o your imagination as your only obstruc-tions.Obstructions

race why the ideal situation is not existing right now. Make a listwith obstructions which are in between the ideal situation andthe reality.Requirements

Check or every obstruction what would be necessary to over-come it. Sometimes it is simple things, like money or manpower,sometimes you have to trust more on your antasy.Tresholds

Now write down which are the thresholds o all requirements toreach or obtain them. Which bumps have be taken?Eliminate thresholds

Finally you think o ways to eliminate all thresholds. Make a list

o these ways and theres your procedure to realize your ideal situ-ation.

Six thinking hats

Te technique o the six thinking hats is invented by Edward de

Bono. Six hats o several colours stand symbol or a dierent as-pect o a problem.

Te white hat stands or inormation which is available or whichcan be obtained. With the white hat a team nds out i they haveall required inormation necessary.Te red hat stands or emotions and intuition. Participants getthe occasion to speak out what their eelings are with a certainquestion. I elt that..., I wonder i...Te yellow hat stands symbol or advantages and realizability.With the yellow hat the positive side o the problem or question

is illuminated.Te black hat acts or appointing dangers and problems. With theblack hat the matter is critically examined.

Te green hat gives space or alternatives and ideas. Te questionwhich precedes is: are there alternatives? We can look at theproblem in a dierent way?Te blue hat keeps track o the organisation. What is the agenda?Which hat is taken into consideration as a rst, which as last?

During a discussion people take dierent hats to clariy a way olooking at the question or problem.


14/43

In the very beginning wewere ree to choose which topicwe wanted to participate in and

that is how our politics groupwas ormed. As soon as we gottogether, we started discuss-ing the political environmentin Armenia. We interviewedour Armenian group-mateshow Armenian citizens wouldact in response o our actiondepending on the issue thatits touching upon, and what

political issues were the mostimportant in Armenias po-litical environment. We brain-stormed and than sorted out aew touchy issues that could beapproached by the action thatour group was going to do.

Tan we started careullyanalizing topics. Some o the

topics were Armenias conictwith its neighboring countries,

recognition o genocide, peo-ple not believing in politiciansand their promises, politicalenvironment mixed up withbusiness interests etc. Someo these issues were too touchybecause they were mainly or-

eigners in the politics groupand thereore ignorant aboutthese issues. So we decided

to stay away rom the con-icts and politicians, and doan action about elections. Weound out that most part o Armenias population is veryskeptical about the electionsand around 60% doesnt vote.We thought Armenians needsomething encouraging andinspirative. Actually those 60%

o people must have betterideas than the ones mentionedon the ballots. We would like toknow what those ideas are, be-cause great ideas get even bet-ter, when you share them. Webelieve that democracy isntonly about voting, but aboutparticipation as well. So we

wanted to pass a message tothe people, not to vote or paid

politicians with their boringideas, but to say or to do some-thing themselves and vote ortheir own ideas.

When we knew exactly whatmessage we wanted to deliver,we stared jotting down some

ideas o actions that could be

done. Since our action groupwas kind o big (8 people), wehad quite some ideas, but wemanaged to put a ew thoughtstogether and not go ar o thesubject. We had a very creativegroup and it was natural thateverybody wanted to expresshimsel. Te entire group

seemed to be inspired with theidea o doing a parody o elec-tions and that was the basis oadding more action ideas tothe existing one.

We came up with a designo voting ballots, made a bigballot box with a bright sign,we decided to have 2 akepoliticians with ake dollars,

who tried to buy the votes opeople, we planned to attractpeoples attention by hav-ing somebody with a bright

costume juggling with devilsticks. We though it would beuseul to have an inormationleaet with a message explain-

ing the meaning o our action.

We decided to put banners onthe politicians with a messagewritten on them that wouldexaggerate the character o thepolitician. Finally the actionwas thought to be conductedin the ollowing way: handingout yers with inormation toattract people to come to our

parody o elections. Have bal-lots that have an option o vot-ing or themselves, write downtheir own opinion and put itin the ballot box. Meanwhilethe ake politicians would tryto bribe the voters with theirake dollars in exchange ortheir votes. During the entireprocess o elections, the jug-

gler would constantly attractattention o passing people.

Group Politics

76


15/43

Tere we are sitting, a group

o 7 people rom three dier-ent countries and we want todo an action about globaliza-tion. How to start?

In order to know who is whowe started with an introduc-tion warm up unny game,which is called speed speech.In 30 seconds you have to say

who you are in a high speed. Ater that the others imme-diately applause and then thenext person starts.

First o all, in order to makethe subject more clear, weneeded to know what is global-ization, what does it mean to

everyone as well as what doesit mean in their country. Tenthe real brainstorm towardsthe action started: We used the

I.D.A. method, which standsor Ideal Fresholds Action. Itgoes like the ollowing.

1. Ideal Situation Formu-late the ideal situation. Forget

all about reality and try to take

the restrictions o your imagi-

nation as your only obstruc-tions. We came up with 9 idealsituations.

2. Obstructions For everyideal situation we wrote downobstructions. Tese obstruc-tions describe why our idealsituation is not ideal now anddoesnt exist.

ip: When you start writ-ing down the ideal situationremember that you need spaceto write down obstructionsand requirements.

3. Requirements Aterwriting down the obstructions

we wrote down the require-ments that we need in order toovercome the obstructions andsolve the problem. For some

obstructions there is only onerequirement, or others thereare around ten. But it can alsohappen that one requirementcan solve dierent kind o ob-structions.

Group Globalisation

Fresholds: We used theLoesje writing method or thiswhich went like this:

We wrote down above each

paper one requirement romthe requirements that came upmore oten to solve the prob-lems. Underneath we wrotedown crazy ideas, action pro-posals and Loesje texts.

When a person wrote downwhat he/she wanted, the paper

was passed to the neighbor.Tat person wrote down theirown ideas and checked theother ideas that were already

written. So we got ten paperslled with ideas, unny actionsand Loesje texts. We circledwith colors the ones we mostliked and we wrote down sixpossibilities about what kindo actions could we do.


16/43

Te beginningWe started out with a hello

and a smile to each other, ar-range a group o soas in ronto the heater, and a cup o co-ee to warm up. Ater that we

were ready or a big discussion,about culture and traditions ingeneral and in Armenia. SinceCulture and radition is aquite wide topic, we started todene what kind o issues andproblems we thought was con-nected with it. All o us did nothave a common culture and the

discussion went in dierent di-rections. We tried to ocus onthings that were importantor Armenia, since it was herewe were going to do our ac-tion. When we were discussingthe topic in general we oundother more specied topics,

which we oten returned to.We wrote them down, and

decided to urther brainstormabout them. Religion, culturalvalues, buildings, gender is-sues and marriage were someo the topics.

1 and a hal hour laterWe started to brainstorm

about the topics we had oundduring the big discussion. Wewrote the topic on the top othe paper, and then we passed

them around and tried to llthem with ideas or actions,opinions and creativity. Atersome time thinking, writing,being rustrated, some smalldiscussions and breaks or in-spiration, we decided we werenished. We started passingthe papers around and circled

the good ideas

Ater LunchNow we had some nice ideas

to talk about. At rst we want-ed to do a lot o things, so wetried to mix the ideas together.Te action was ormed slowly,

and become more and moreclear. We discussed about what

we wanted to accomplish, andtried to narrow the subject tomake the action less conus-ing. Ater some time we de-cided that the base o the ideashould be to interview people

Group culture

and encourage them to expresstheir opinions with us. In thatway, we could bring up di-

erent issues and topics, andtry to make people active. Wedecided that we want to ocuson bringing up the discus-sion about cultural problems,to make people think, ratherthan give an already made so-lution to a problem in only one

topic. By the end o the day,the idea had changed so muchthat it was no longer recogniz-

able rom the brainstorm. Outo the brainstorm papers, wecreated a new idea together,which we all could support. Welet the table, quite satisedwith our work.

10


17/43

Group Environment

Imagine: some people romdierent countries care aboutthe environment and come to-

gether. Teir minds are openand theyre up or action.

But what to do? ime or abrainstorm.

Tey sit around a table andrst they try to come up with aspecic topic, because you cantsave the whole world in once.Something global? Somethinglocal? Since theyre in Armenia,

they think it would be betterto have a local topic, becausetheres probably not so muchawareness in the streets aboutglobal environmental problem.In Yerevan there are a lot oparks, but more and more ca-s appear on that spots. Alsopeople dont seem to appreci-

ate the trees so much. Teresyour topic. Parks and trees.

Now the group can think or a

suitable action. Dierent ideas,parts o visions and combinedaction plans were suddenly y-

ing around. Te atmosphereamong the people was veryopen, so everybody elt ree tosay the weirdest and most bril-liant ideas.

Ten the hard part started.Kill your darlings. So much niceactions and such a little time! Ater a break to think thingsover individually, the group

came together again to pick thenicest and most practical plan.It seemed that even apart romeach other the people came upwith the same combination oplans. Te Portable Park andthe alking rees (or reesTought).

Now they could go on with

the preparations

Te environment group wasmade up our people initially,who camp up with the action

ideas and proposed it to therest o the activists who joinedthe group later. Tis made theinitial brainstorming processquite straightorward, becausewith a small group you canbounce ideas o on another

quite easily and the planning ismore discussion-based.

In larger groups you otenhave to wait a long time to sayyour contribution or react towhat somebody else has said.So we ound we didnt haveto use any structured ways obrainstorming because as soonas we started discussing theideas owed quickly.

I there was a disagreement

about an idea or trying to de-cide between two things or

example, we just continueddiscussing the pros and consabout each idea and came toa decision by consensus. Con-sensus based decision makingtakes a lot o time, but it re-sults in people all saying yes to

a decisions and nobody endsup with a decision they dontlike (this happens with a vot-ing system or example).

An important part thoughwas taking turns taking notesabout the ideas. Since there

was constant bouncing oideas back and orth the hard-est job was writing down thenotes and trying to organizethem while writing. Also withan international group withdierent levels o English writ-

ing abilities it can sometimesbe difcult to get everyone to

take a turn writing notes. Soyou should be aware o thiswhen working in an interna-tional setting preparing or anaction.

Overall or brainstormingwe ound having an open andree attitude and letting every-one speak and share their ideaswithout eeling like theyd be

ridiculed was the most inspir-ing environment and lead to

a very creative environmentalaction.


18/43

Preparation


19/43

Pr

eparation

You are a group o people now, you havechosen a topic and you are amiliar with a

surrounding o your action. You even have avision o how your action might look.

Your vision is just about to become visibleor other as well. You are zooming in youraction and starting to realize and createdetails. You settle down, and think hard.How will our action really look?, Whatdo we need or our action? and What willbe our role there?.

Here we oer a possible structure. Firstthink o a message you want to pass. Tanthink o the possible tools you might useto pass the message. For that you will alsoneed some material, and at the end nd

your place in the action.

Message

Message is way o communication betweenus and the targeted recipients o it. Forevery topic, thousand o messages can be

passed and in thousand o ways. In thatsense, when you want to send a message

you should think about two things: what doI want to say and what do I need to do sothat the recipient get it the way I wantedto pass it.

So, start rom yourselves. Find what do youwant to say and be sure that you really eelthat and, in some case, you might need to

be well inormed about the topic as well.Te more you understand your own mes-sage the better chance is that recipient willunderstand it better too.

Tan, think about your target group. Which kind o message willbe easiest or them to understand. Note: oten what we want to

say and the way we want to do that does not match with whatrecipient want to hear. Finding balance there is a true art, weleave that to you.

What you should know though, is that it is oten a matter o time.Sometimes it takes hours, days or even weeks beore we can trulyunderstand and appreciate one message. So take your time whenevaluating the reception o you message.

At the end, some actions dont have a clear message. Maybe you

just want to question someone or to measure someones reactionto a specic stimulus. However, it is still a type o communica-tion and questioning yoursel and thinking about target group arenecessary as well.

ool

At this point message is still in your head or on a piece o paper.Tere are a lot o ways to send it. For sending a message we usedierent tools. Here are some examples o tools:

Teatrical dance and music perormances, street animation,games, internet or printed publications, painting, posters, discus-sions, art installations and many more.

No matter which tools you are planning to use keep in mind that:

they should be suitable or delivering your message (i youwant to signiy the importance o sustainable living dont or-

ganize a car race),they should be as complex as you have time and resourcesto bring it trough (building a youth hostel in just a ew daysmight ail),they should suite you, your skills and interests (walking on yourhands can look quite silly i you have never did it beore),

they should be adapted to the location and a target group (iyou make an action in Prague, your text posters in Swedishmight be misunderstood).

76


20/43

Material

Plastic, carton, paint, brushes, cloth, pa-

per... bring it all here!

When you have decided and designedyour tools (e.g.. street theater, grafti...)it is time to produce them. Street actionsare ast and short-run methods o send-ing a message. Oten, those actions alsochange places. Tats why you should tryto limit yoursel to light materials, which

are disposable as well. You should be reeto move easily and not to worry to muchon your setting (damage, thet...).

Where you should not limit yoursel isusing everyday objects and simple thingsin an extraordinary and creative ways.

Make instruments out o carton pipes,bottles, rice and beans. Build your set-ting out o carton boxes and use somenice paint to reach the eect.

Contact

We are human beings. And recipients oour message are human beings as well.

Even i this doesnt sound like the smart-est thing youve ever heard, keep that inmind. So when going to make a street ac-tion dont stand still like a wall or jumparound hitting people like a dragon. Youshould also notice and attract people.Tey are not hungry and you are not o-

ering bones.

Pr

eparation

Tere are many varieties when it comes to making human con-tact. You can use costumes and objects to stress your message.

You can play your role with with or without pre-designed sce-nario, that is with dierent levels o improvisation. You can alsodesign a leaet, yer or something in common to address youraudience.

Whatever you do try to t your role to your tool and your mes-sage. Design such a role and a scenario that you eel comortableand condent. And try to play and adapt your approach to every

person you approach, cause we are dierent.

On the next pages you will read how did we in our groups pre-pare our actions. Which tools and materials did we use. At theend there are some o the riendly tips and suggestions aboutmaking an action.

So hurry up! Te action is getting close!


21/43

Group PoliticsWhen the brainstorm has

passed, the idea has beentransormed into a solid plan,then its time to transport allthis into stu. Stu that canbe used in the action.Costumes, leaets, anddecoration whatever you

decided on.In our case we decided

to have a corrupt politi-cian and a lazy politicianwho were going to bribepeople in order to buytheir vote.

So we needed: 2 costumesor politicians and ake dollars.

We wanted people to vote, so,thereore we needed a ballotbox and ballots and o courseinormation with our messageon it.

Everything also needed atext concept, the yers, lea-lets, ballots, ballot box, ev-erything.

So we started working

you would say Aha, we orgot about

proper organization; ornot orgot about it, it justdidnt work. Just when ithought I had a grid on it,it just slipped away again.It was like trying to build

a castle on the sand, to builda road through a eld o land-mines

Tings happened, material

was made but overall coordi-nation or communication or

group eeling? No way!So when we had the idea

that everything was nished,except some printing and mak-ing the ballot box, it was nosurprise that in the morningbeore the action, hal the stuwas not to be ound

NOE

Tisgrouphadanicediscussionaboutpoliticalsit

uationindiferent

countries.Soon they cameupwithanice idea or

theaction,which

includesa lot odiferenttoolsaswell.

Seconddaytheywereproducingtheirmaterialbut

thatdaythey were

not motivatedororganisedenough.Teyhavelet

quitealotowork

tobedoneonthemorningjustbeoretheaction.A

ndthenbeorethe

actiontheysomehowlostpart otheirmaterial.Ta

tproducedabito

astress insidethegroup.

Soleavetheaction dayasree aspossible.Tanyou

shouldberelaxed.

Wewillseehowwillthisstressinuencetheirpero

rmanceontheac-

tion.

MessageVote or yourown ideas, bepoliticaly moreinventive andactive.

oolsBallot withpapers to writeideas on andto vote, bribingpeople withake money, jug-gling...

MaterialsFake dollars,yers, votingpapers, cartonballot, black andwhite posters,devil sticks

Contactwo peopledressed up andplaying theirroles, others ex-plain the action,help with votingand discussabout politicalsituation in thecountry

Moral o the story? Workwith people who can commu-nicate with, behave like a dic-tator i you have to, but makesure you know whats going on!Otherwise take a break, a book

and relax man!

4140


22/43

NOE

Ontherstdaytheyspentalototimeorthediscussion.Teywere

happywiththediscussionbuttheywer

ewaybehindtheothergroups.

Tatproducedabitoapressureonth

em.But,thenextdaythepres-

sureseemstoworkjustneandtheyw

orkalotandhardandtheysuc-

ceedtomakeupthetimeandtheirwork

isontime.So,iyouspendyour

timeinaconstructivewayyoucanspe

ndasmuchasyouwant.

Teir toolsareeasy toproduce, play

uland communicativeand they

seemtoenjoyproducingthem.

Wellseehowwillallthisafecttheirac

tion.

Messageo make peoplethink o glo-balization andto raise publicawareness aboutglobalization it-sel, its dangers,opportunities,and personalinuence anyo us can haveon it.

oolsStreet game inwhich audiencetake part bythrowing a bigdice and puttingsome simbolson the big worldmap.

MaterialSome chalk todraw a worldmap, plasticbottles wraptedin paper with adrawing o di-erent simbolsand objects(parks, schools,nuclear power-plants...), somecostumes and abig carton dice.

ContactGroup is cos-tumed (a prin-cess, a rog, alittle girl, a busi-ness woman,ootballplayer)they approachpeople, explainthe game andask questionsabout the deci-sions made byparticipants.

Group Globalisation

44

During our brain-storming we havespent a lot o timediscovering whatglobalisation meansto everyone o us.Since we were a groupmade o people withdierent cultural

backgrounds we spenta lot o time. But aterthat we elt enthousi-astic about making anaction.

Our direction was not totreat globalisation as some-thing good or bad by itsel,but as something that we can

change, that we can direct.

Tat is whywe have chosen to make agame about globalisation. Tatgame would invite participantsto create their own world, asthey would like to see it.

For that we thought odrawing a big map o the worldon the pavement. It shouldbe also easy to draw it several

times and to move it. Aterthat we made lot o bottles

with symbols on them. Tosebottles would represent thingsthat we like or dislike in theworld (parks, schools, nuclearpowerplants, prisons...).

So, the game starts withthrowing a big dice (which we

made out o carton boxes). Tenumber on the dice (it has only1 to 3) tells how many objectsyou can put on the map. As

someone chooses the bottle weask them why they did it. Bydoing that we wanted to makepeople think more and expressthemselves.

o make the whole processunnyer and our action more

colourull we dressed ourselvesup. We were ootball players, agirl, a queen, a rog and a mod-ern, business woman. In thatsense we were also symbols o

globalisation or anti-globalisa-tion.


23/43

Te second day we spend inmaking plans o how to makethe action. We were discuss-

ing the location o our action,materials we are going to use,what could go wrong, how wethought people would reactand so on. We decided to giveout yers to make people cometo our wall, and to make them

remember us more. We alsowanted to record all interviews,

so that we would get the rightopinions down on the wall.

We started with making thequestions. We ound the ques-tions, simply by a discussioninside the group. We thoughtabout the topics we had duringthe brainstorm and issues romthe previous discussion, andwrote all o our ideas down. At

the end o the selection we had9 questions:

What is culture or you?

What do you think aboutcopy-pasting culture?Are you araid o losing yourculture?Have your actions ever beenlimited by your countrys

traditions? When? How?What does religion mean toyou?Does the youth care abouttradition?

How do you ollow the tradi-tions and cultural codes?What is your avorite tradi-

tion?Do you think culture ischanging? What are thepositive and negative sideso it?Who and how is changingthe traditions/culture?

We tried to make a mix o

serious and more easy ques-tions, to open up a discus-sion with all kinds o people.We also wanted to have somequestions that are specic orthe locals.

MaterialWe started to discuss what

kind o materials we needed,

and wrote it up on a list. Ex-cept rom materials, or theaction such as pens and pa-

pers, we decided to bring taperecorders, so we could get theactual words in the interviews,and to bring a video camera todocument the action.

itle o action and yers

o make people rememberus and to make them come tothe action we wanted to makeyers. We decided to have ashort text and a small picture

on it. We all together discussed

the text and a title or thewhole action. We agreed atersome time to call the actionSpeak up your Culture!

Overall Process

Te preparation process didnot have the inspiration andenergy as the brainstormingpart. It was hard to keep thegroup together. We took dier-

ent responsibilities, which let

the group more dependant onsome people. Maybe it wouldhave been better i we had hadanother meeting beore the ac-tion, at the end o the prepa-rations, to catch up on how

everyone was doing. Now weonly checked out what was tobe done, and trusted everyoneto do it well, and to eel goodabout it.

Group culture

NOE

Alreadyduringthediscussionpartthisgroupingeneralseemtomiss

somemotivation.Actionplanisconsistedoonlytwo tools. Aswesaid

earlier,iyouarenotinspiredtodoanactionand iyoudonteelcon-

nectedtothetopicandthemessagethan youwontbe abletothinko

nice ideasanditwillbe hardtoproducematerial needed.

Seconddaytheyareproducingtheirtoolsandthey seemmoreconcen-

trated.Still,participationinsidethegroupislow. Iyour group changes

alotduringthepreparationthan itmightbeuseul toreorganiseyour-

sel.Oneswhowanttoworkwillwork.

Wewillneedtokeepan eyeonthemduringtheaction...

MessageDrawing atten-tion to topicso culture andtradition byinterviewingand showingresults

oolsInterviewingpeople abouttheir vision othe culture andtradition andmaking an exhi-bition o difer-ent answers

MaterialBig papers100x70 cm,markers indiferent colors,glue, papers A4,camera, taperecorder, yers

ContactApproachingpeople, inter-viewing themand discussingabout the topicand explainingthe exhibitedmaterial

444


24/43

Environment group wantedto make it easy and environ-mental riendly, o course, so

we prepared the action in linewith the the group shared ide-als.

Te action was also creative,simple, cheap, interactive andunny. Here is the descriptiono how we did in practice and

how this action can be repeat-ed, making it better!

MessageWe wanted to do an action

in the city o Yerevan with anenviromental message relatedto it. alking with people wholive there, we discovered that,apart other big problems aspollution, trafc etc, there is ahuge lack o public green spac-

es. Te ones that existed once,are now invaded rom caesand restaurants, so there is no

more space or people to restand have un!

Someone had to claim backthese spaces! Parks are goodor people! Tat was how theaction Portable park was

born. It is a movable, oldingpark that you can bring withyou and use wherever it is

necessary. We would perormthis action, moving rom onesquare to another, surroundedby the shadow o improvisedtrees, playing a bit, eating bis-cuits, talking with people and,why not, hanging out

As an addition to that weplanned an action called reesthought. Te idea is that trees

themselves should say some-thing about environmentalissues as well. Cardboard bal-l o o n s

inspired by comicstrips, both in ar-menian and english,were to be hangedon the trees in thestreets So theycould nally ex-

press themselvessaying things like:Are you lookingat me?, or Dog,please, don`t pisson me!, Stop thatnoise, I want to sleep!, Pho-tosynthesis, let`s talk aboutit, and so on... Flowers could

speak as well: Please, smellme, Flowers rule...

ools and MaterialPortable park - We ound

that the easiest way to make agarden was to use a big greensheet, as big as possible, de-pending on nances. Better i

you nd an old one to recycle:).

Te trees - Our trees wereinterpreted by three lovely girlswearing a leaves crown andcovered with real branches. We

c h a n g e dour roles so everyone was atree that day.

But who has never been atree in their lie? For sure thereare billions o nice way to rep-resent a tree, and more treesyou have in you park more itwill look real`!!!

Banner - o make the mes-

sage more clear, we wrote abanner, made o white cloth,where was written, in the lo-

cal language, the title o theaction, and the trees was hold-ing it the movable ones, ocourse!

Group Environment

4746


25/43

NOE

Groupcamewith anice andeasy message. From the startthey seemed

to concentratemore to makethe actiothan to discuss about diferent

topics. Tey inventedand created nice toolsthatrequires a lot oman-

ualand creativethinkingwork (treeandowerbubbles and portable

park).

Second day they seemto work alot on theirmaterial and toenjoy the

work; theirwork is quite visible aswell. On the action daythey spend

theirmorningworking but they don`t seemstressedand still enjoy their

work.

Obviously atmosphere in the group isniceand that iscrucial orany

action. Soexept thinkingona good action oraudience thinkosuch an

action inwhich all the participants will eelgood. Oten simple actions

have such an efect.

Wehope their good spirit willlast duringthe actiontoo.

MessageMaking peoplerealise the needor more greenareas!

oolsrees andowers talking,people playingin a removablepark and talkingwith passers by

MaterialCarton signs,markers,leas, sticks,green cloth,buiscuits,gloves, bags

Contactsetting a park,hanging thesigns, dressedup like trees,talking topeople aboutgreen areas intheir city.

Games - A park is not a parkwithout balls. Balls, reesbees,tennis rackets etc. are wel-come, but i you orget it you

can always improvise and playwith a plastic bottle!!!

Biscuits - o convince morepeople to join you, try to oerthem some biscuits, they willbe glad and smiling!

Music - Some guitar or anice radio will make every-thing nicer.

rees thoughts - Te bal-

loons were the place wheretrees expressed themselves.Tose were made by recycledcardboards, painted in white.With the markers we wrote thetexts. Using a cutter we did twoholes on the cardboard, andusing some rope we hung it ontrunks, branches, leaves Te

ower`s balloon were xed onthe ground with wood sticks.

Cleaning the streets - Wealso bought some plasticgloves and bags with the intentto clean a bit rom garbage the

places we visited

44


26/43

10

preparation tips

Setting

Contact has a vital importance, so

make sure you have one or couple opeople that actually can communicatewith locals;Check your location i possible beoreyou go to it. I you cant do it, than atleast take a look to a map;

Make sure what day (maybe specialholidays etc.) and what time (duringshopping / working hours ) you do

the action;Check all the legal issues. Many placesneed special permits to set up an ac-tion there.

Material

Funny / strange clothes gives a greatattention to your action;ry to nd used/ second hand /yourown materials;Your location can maybe replace somematerial (wall instead o a board...)You can do a lot just by using lot o

colours;Your material should not restrict youin any way.

Other

I you want more people try in-volving media as well;Make a check list;

Dont leave too much or the lastmoment, calculate your time;For everything you create, make abackup, a plan B;Warm up with a cup o coee ortea.

Organisation

Good task division makes a process suc-cessul itsel;Everybody should do something they areup or;

Make sure everyone knows exactly whatto do beore the action starts;Good communication!Find a balance between leadership and

sel-initiative;Find ways to motivate yoursel.


27/43

Action


28/43

Actio

n

Action time! Get your walking shoes, put your costumes and perumes. A

nal look to the mirror. Fix that hat! Material is ready and all the group isthere. Hit the road Jack! Cause streetsare waiting...

All the preparation is done. I thereis something you still need, try not tolose to much time and energy on that.Feel ree to improvise. No matter how

good you prepare, street is a live system

and it is changing all the time. So youneed to adapt ast. Besides that, out oimprovisation and spontaneous acting

great thing can be born.

Another important point is to rememberhow it all started. Why did you decideto do the action, what was your inspira-tion? Because that is why you are thereand it is easier to ght or somethingthat you have eelings about.

Your message is your ag, keep it highin the sky. Your message and what youwant to reach, that is your goals, are the

guidelines or everything you do.And when you step to the street, try toeel it and go with the ow. Most o the

people eel extraordinary powerul andexcited when they go to the street. At-tention o the audience combined with

your motivation and accumulated en-ergy during the preparation process isenough to keep you running or hours.It is not strange that rom ancient timesmost important cultural, social and po-

litical events were held on the streets and central squares. Teremust be a reason or that. Use that!

On the other hand, street and contact with people passing byoten contain a lot o obstacles. It seems easier than it is, to ap-

proach people, talk to them or act and dance on the street. Toseare all skills that we build by time. But the obstacle is there to

jump over it. Te higher the obstacle, the greater the jump.

And than, beore you can turn around action is over. ake yourtime to be happy about it. Go with a group to a nice place, talkabout it, have a quick look trough the material collected (i you

did collect).On the next pages you can go trough our action reports. Howdid we eel when going to the street? Did our plans work, did wecatch up with our expectations? What did go wrong and whatwe liked? At the end there are some Dos and Donts or makingan action.

Enjoy!

4


29/43

Group Politics

Everybody is running up

and down. Guys where are you?We are starting Dont smokenow

Wait a minute Where is theake money? We dont have it?Well make it ast! ake pictureso the participants and changethe pictures o Hamilton withthose. Ok...

Papers markers . Prob-lems, again? We need ballotsor people to vote. Cool guysyou are perect... Ballot box papers and come one Cheerup and Opera Square will openitsel or you :)

Eight people moving to onedirection. wo dressed up aspoliticians the others carry-

ing ballots and a ballot boxGiving out leaets talking topeople. Peoplevoting and ex-

pressing theirideas.

Come on Sir,join us. We needyour ideas

Dear dependent observer,

Everything was going greatin the corrupted kingdom oAbsentia. We were so well or-ganized it seemed that systemwould never collapse.

Everything was working

perectly. Te same ideas were

simply recycled rom the sys-tem. O course most Absen-tians had lost their hope. So,there was nothing more thatthey could do but ignore alldemocratic procedures.

Phrases such as What canI do about that? or No mat-ter what happens things will

never change, were more re-quent than Good morning!and Good aternoon!.

O course this was a mis-

take rom

both candidates and voters.Te rst ones were corruptionreceivers and the second onescorruption transmitters.

I had never paid attentionon how dirty were the streetso Absentia since in my suburb

in the north o the city every-thing was clean. Also aroundthe parliament, streets were so

clean and there was no dust atall

Te prophecy became truewhen one morning I noticeda poster signed by a mysteri-ous girl called Loesje: Citizeninitiative - Because you cantsee politicians cleaning the

streets.

Everything started whenthis group o activists held ameeting in Tinkhadjor. Whatthey did was so simple. Teydecided to motivate people notto ignore elections. O coursean action like this would be thebeginning o our destruction.

People were not only invit-ed to participate but they werealso asked to vote or theirown idea. It was the rst opensource ballot in our history.

I saw it with my own eyes:a lot o people thinking, writ-ing their own ideas and put-ting their votes in the ballot-box. Immediately our aithulguards tried to stop this action

and bring things back to nor-mal lie. Is this the beginningo our end? Im deeply con-cerned about the upcomingelections. What can I do?

Please write as soon as pos-sible.

Sincerely yours

A desperate politician

76


30/43

NOE

Whenapproachingthisgroupyou thinkthatcircus cametotown. Tey

lookgreat. Lot o colours, lot opeople, lot o thinghappening. Tey

used many toolsand together withgreatlocationit resultedin loads o

people ontheirspot.

What remainsas aquestionisdid theaudienceunderstandthe whole

concept, orwere theyjust attracted by ammount otools. So, always try

to make agoodconnection between thetools, makea story out oit.

Noneothegroups hada permition to make astreet action. Sothatin

general made anissuewith the police. Still all thegroupsreacted di-

erently. Tisgroup obayedthe law, packedtheirthings andmade and

earlyend oan action.

Buttheydidnt eel badabout it. Teystillhad lotoun.

Group Globalisation

In the morning the lastpreparations were made. Wegathered in ront o the hosteland already got a lot o atten-

tion rom the rst passers by.Not so weird when your groupis composed rom a rog, aqueen, a little kid, two oot-ball players, a business womanand a gnome. Walking downthe street, armed with build-ing-like bottles, a Skippy ball,gigantic dice and our smiles,the attention grew. Can we

take a picture with the rog

and the queen?People started gaz-ing as we walked on,some laughing, somewondering, somewhispering to eachother, others shakingtheir heads, wonder-

ing have their losttheir minds?.

At the rst location, a smallsquare in a park near the uni-versity we stopped to rest a bitand get ready or the try-out o

our game. Te globe was drawnon the pavement, the bottleswere placed around it and theyers were handed out.

wo small boys were therst to sneak up to us, curiouso what was happening. One byone we caught people in theirworld and asked them to putin their dreams or needs.

Hi there,My name is Luca, Im the one in

orange on the picture desperately try-

ing to keep my ying devil stick romying away. I had a lot o un that day,but as you can see, there were alsosome other people there like thatguy.

Some people said that he was aclown but I think he was a bit strangeor a clown. He was all in black and

white clothes and he wasnt smilingnearly as much as meAnd also, he only knew one trick;

he would talk to a person who thenmade a cross with a piece o paper.Ten he would get a piece o green paper rom his pocket and giveit to the person. I think he was a boring clown and I went back tothe serious business o juggling.


31/43

A woman explained to usI want to put in an airportbecause my daughter is livingabroad and i am always waitingthere or her to return. I alsoput in a hotel because I wantto have a lot o guests comingover to this country. An el-derly man starts a discussion

about globalization and justcant be convinced o its goodsides walks away grumping. Young parents put in: parks,playgrounds and orests ortheir kinds and in the mean-while, the two little boys haveput their small chairs in theworld and are replacing all the

buildings, giggling and looking

up to us as they do it. Ater a group o male stu-

dents had thrown away themilitary base because theywould like a world without war,we elt it was time to move onto a bigger and more crowdedlocation. So we packed thebuildings and let the rst

world behind.At the movie square there

was already one o the othergroups showing their environ-mental riendly portablepark to the local V station.We took over their spot andstarted putting up the gameagain. Now even more people

gathered around our world

NOE

Tey lookinteresting.Teircostumesandaunny streetgame seemtobe

realy attractive.Lotopeopledierent agesjoined

their action.

Teychangedtheirlocationseveraltimesandthatseems towork good.

Everylocationoered another audience.

Everylocationisalso dierentpoliceofcer.So police couldnt get ontheir

way.Tey didwhat they wantedtodo.

Conclusion:nomatter how strangeitsounds, butevenon the publicplac-

esinthemiddleotheworkinghours,peopleliketoplaygames.Youwill

also eelgoodiyouoera nicegame.Tan youaddsomemeaningtoit

and,voila,youhave agreatstreetaction!

and threw thedice to put inthe things they

would like tosee on it. At onepoint a group ostudents askedwhere Armeniawas in this world.We said since itwas just imagi-

nary, it could beanywhere. Tatwas enough toget them excited and drawinga real big Armenia in the worldand putting in as much as theycould roll the dice.. also tak-ing away buildings rom othercountries. Te sun was hot,the people riendly and curious

and ater three hours o play-ing with the world and ideaso people about globalization,we thought it was time to end.Te costumes went o and we

returned to our normal selvesagain, still enjoying the atertaste o the day.

6160


32/43

Group cultureAction itle: Culture/radi-

tionsDate: Octobre 19, 2006Place : Opra Square, Yere-

van, ArmeniaContent: Questioned Ar-

menia Citizens on ongoingcultural and traditional issuesand put their ideas on the pa-

per wall on opera square o

Yerevan.

Tere were people whoreused to give an interviewarguing that they are in ahurry, the other part try toavoid it arguing that they arenot competent in this sort o

questions. For example, we ap-proached a person and startedinterviewing him in Russian.He shouted, No, no, no, onlyArmenian. Ten we switchedto Armenian andhe said, No, no,its better in Rus-sian. People re-ally nd unny

ways o escapingo being inter-viewed!

Tere weresome people

who got really interested withthe questions and were eagerto answer them. For instance,a guy who studied Arts ex-pressed the ideas he had andalso got interested what is ouraim and who are the organiz-ers o the action.

People who did give inter-

views seemed to be interested

in the issues we were trying todiscuss, the questions touchedthem. As an illustration Ill tellabout a woman I interviewedwho works in a library and shewas really anxious about Arme-nian youth. She said that theyhad no readers in the library,

only some very old people. Shesaid Youngsters say that theyare using the Internet, but Idont believe, because they donot speak literally. Other ex-

NOE

Comparedto other groupstheirtoolarelesseective,lesscalling.Still

whenpeoplecome they made nicequestionsandtheirlocationis attrac-

tive.Attheendtheycollecteedquitesomematerial.

Such anattractive location attracted the policeaswell.Unlikesomeoth-

ergroupstheydidntchangetheirlocation.Policedidchasethemaway.

Conclusion: iyouthinkthatwhatyou aredoingisgoodandyoulikeit

thandontgiveit upeasy.Buteven iyouractionendsupearly itisnot

areasonto eelbad. Everydayisanothergoodreasonto make astreet

action.

ample is a young man who told

that he cares a lot about hiscountry and his traditions andone o the acts proves that hedoes is that he chose his nativecountry to live in instead o liv-ing abroad where he had someopportunities to study/work.

Overall Result

A huge paper bearing someideas about ongoing culturaland traditional issues. We alsohave got a good video o theaction as we used the camerato record the interviews butwe have not edited it yet, butwhich can show the reactionso the public.

66


33/43

Group EnvironmentWell the real aim o each

action is to get attention rompeople. During our actionmost o the people stoppedand asked dierent questionsabout our action. Tey were re-ally interested and they stayed

with us, plaid in our portablepark, tasted our cookies andso on.

During the action wechanged our place three timesin order to get more peoples at-tention. And we got it.

We were very riendly andthe people were also riendly,

even i they didnt understandwhat was going on. A lot opeople at the end wished usgood luck. Tere was no onewho said something negativeabout our Environment por-table park and thought trees.

People asked us about the

meaning o the greencloth and other

things we used.Tere were alsoa lot o touristsrom France andother countriesand they com-pletely agreedwith our action.

But there is one sad point.People didnt believe that wecan change something by do-ing this or that we could havesome results with our action.

Tey had lost their hope. Somepeople were a little bit pes-simistic in the beginning butlater on they participated andstarted playing and laughing.

Tey liked our idea a lot.Te people asked which orga-nization was organizing thisaction. When we described all

o them tried to get more in-

ormation about us and askedor our contacts.

Tere was also an issue withthose two policemen. Teytried to stop our action but we

knew that i we were less than20 people we didnt need any

kind o license to make thiskind o action!

Well in the end we had donewhat we wanted and I thinkthat everything was really

nice.

NOE

Alotounandgoodspiritinsidethegroupduringthepreparation a-

ectedthe groupduringtheactionaswell. Beorereachingthelocation

theyalreadymakecontactwithpeopleandusetheirtools.Peoplelike

them.

Whentheymadetheir settingeverythingseemstogo neand peopleare

interestedandwanttojointhem.Teirtoolsareeective andpositive.

Aswith the othergroups,policevisittheirspotaswell. Sincetheir action

ismovable,everyhalanhourtheychangetheirlocation.Policedidnt

spoil their un.So, thesameeventaectedeverygroup inadierent

way.Wonderwhy?

Conlusion:easyplanandgoodspiritworked outthebestpossibleway.

664


34/43

6766

action tips

DONTs

Dont drink alcohol;Dont make use o monuments, statues i you dontknow the value or meaning o it, so that you dont in-

sult people;Dont leave a mess behind you;

Dont argue (never) with people;Dont push - I one is not interested or negative, thereis another one out o 6 billion on this world;Dont stick too much to your plan;Dont wait, be proactive, approach people;Whatever happens, dont panick;

Dont give up easy, there is always a better way.

DOs

Prepare yoursel well, design backup plans;Be exible;Speak with one mouth;

ry to put yoursel in a audience perspective;Do a rehearsal somewhere;Open up, be cool;Be riendly and in a good mood;ry to create a humorous climate in order to make par-ticipants eel more comortable;Tink o the process, enjoy it;Always think o the message you want to send;Do a crazy thing!Have un!

Aterwards, go together or a beer.


35/43

reflection


36/43

re

flect

ion

Te action is over. Celebration aboutit is over as well. Maybe you are ex-

tremely happy and you are telling to your parents all about it until theyall asleep. Maybe you are also sadenough to decide never to do it again,or angry enough never to say hello toany o your group members again.

But since you are reading this thereis a hope that you would like to do itagain.

I you plan to do so, you need to gotrough another very important step.Tat step is called reection and what

you need to do is to go back to every phase o your action and analyze itstep by step.

So, did you reach your message? Howdid people react? How did you eel?What about your tools and materials?Did you already see things that could

be changed, improved? And manyother questions will guide you to abetter understanding o everythingthat happened. You will also realize

how some things work and what to doto make things better.

It happens that there are dierentopinion about the actions inside the

group. Put it all down, and try to un-

derstand each other. Street actionsare a matter o many people, so ev-eryone might have something to add.

And dont try to tap yourselves on theshoulders. I you want to make it bet-

ter next time, be critical, no need to make things better thanthey were. O course, balance is needed there as well. I you are

too negative, going out to the street next time might not workat all.

At the end, i your action produced some kind o material, e.g.survey, texts, paintings, video recordings. Tan this is the timeto go trough it and make something nice o it. I you liked youraction, think o a ollow-up as well. Maybe you can do it againwith dierent people, tools, materials or you can just change a

place or even make an artistic caravan an go around the planetew times. Once you did a street action there is no way back!

On the next pages will see how did we reect on our actions.Were we realistic enough, positive or negative? At the end thereis an example o an evaluation orm. Feel ree to use it and up-

grade it.

Bon voyage!

7170


37/43

Group Politics

Once upon a time, there wasa group o enthusiastic people

that wanted to do an exchangeor a better world. Tey decid-ed to prepare a street action,by which they could encourageyouth to change and be moreactive.

As the action was supposed

to be demonstrated in Yerevan,Armenia and since one o thebiggest problems in Armenia

was presidential elections,they decided to inspire theArmenian society to use theirright to vote and show to thegovernment that the uture othe nation is in their hands.Since in Armenia presidentialelections are not air enough,because the people who dont

vote, later their names areused against themselves, thatmeans that the government

steels their names and votesor corrupted politicians. Whycorrupted, well thats too easyto answer, they bribe peopleand government to get morevotes to help them become apresident, corrupt our country

and to laugh at all the peoplewho didnt vote.

Now ater everything isclear, I will return to the action

part. It was held on 19.10.06at the Opera Square, that placewas chosen, because it is alwayscrowded, but unortunatelythe time was not chosen goodenough, it was too early in theday. Tough we had enough

voters!For our action we had pre-pared a ballot box with a sign

that says Please, dont ignoreme, ballots, yers, and, ocourse, we had a clown withdevilsticks.

Unortunately there shouldbe something that is prob-lematic in the whole actionprocess. In our case it was thepolice intererence. Bur over-

all, everything went well, andpeople were excited to takepart in our action.

77


38/43

Group GlobalisationOur basic message was to

make people think o globaliza-tion and to raise public aware-ness about globalization itselits dangers, opportunities,and personal inuence any ous can have on it. Besides, wetried to explain that they canuse positive sides o globaliza-tion in regards o developing

their own country within theprocess.

Our struggle to get outthis message to public was notso eective due to careullychoosing place, making con-tact and methods. During thegame and handing out leaetswas not enough time to ex-plain and deliver our message

ruitully. People understoodthe main idea, but could notget into details.

Using Loesje texts about

globalization on leaets wassuccessul because it was inlocal language and was an e-ective way to deliver our mes-sage. Tey took those ones athome which could have beenspread among amily mem-bers, riends, neighbors, andrelatives. Playing a game Lets

Build Our Ideal World withinteraction with local peopleto participate their selves, wasa good opportunity or us toknow what people want tohave in ideal world, but it wasnot very productive to shareour ideas.

Choosing the park placenear the university was a bit

quiet and less people, so it wasnot a good decision to makeour action there, because wehad not an opportunity to com-

municate with group o peopleand spread our ideas. On theother hand, the other place we

moved later calledMoscow Square wasvery crowded, con-

sequently, we had achance to make morepeople get involvedand spread our ideasmore eectively.

It seemed thatmore experienced andskilled people shared

more or less respon-sibilities. Mostly, ew o thegroup members could com-municate in Russian, so otherswere let aside.

People showed interest andparticipated in the activity,though skeptical attitude to-wards the topic and action itselwas noticed in people. Some-times, the reaction was de-

pended on age o participants.Te older ones showed more oindierent attitude than young

peopl e .In general they enjoyed thegame.

Overall evaluation o theaction o the group is positive.It was good to see how our par-ticipation developed withinthe day. Te group got moreexperience to plan an actionand make it. Te action wasgood in regards o people wereinterested in it, but our mes-sage was not delivered clearly.

774


39/43

Group cultureProblems Faced and Ways

or solving them

Posters that weve been is-suing bear the wrong actiondate. We noticed that hal wayto our location.

Reason: We were in a hurryand didnt check the details.

Way o Solving the Prob-

lem: We could prepare the pa-pers earlier and check it one

more time beore printing andusing them. We had to be moreattentive.

Lack o motivation o thegroup Group members werenot much enthusiastic aboutthe action, which resulted as alower ability to solve ongoingproblems.

Reason: Lack o groupwork.

Ways o Solv-ing the problem:Discuss about ex-pectations, ears,experiences o eachmember beorestarting the action.

Te way we interviewedpeople was not so eective.

Reason: Our plan was to

divide in three groups o twopeople, each one with one na-tive speaker, but in reality, webecame two groups, with onenative speaker in each group.Te reason or us to be twogroups instead o three, was

that we were sticking the yersat the same time. Tis way o

dividing the group, meant thatmainly the Armenian speakerswere interviewing, and the resto the participants elt a littlebit lost. Some o the partici-pants were not really active.

Ways o solving the prob-lem: Better planning o the ac-tual action. Dividing the taskso what is to be done in the ac-

tion beorehand.

Police Ater 30 minutespolice came and told us that wehad only an hour to be there,and as we had been there al-ready or 30 minutes then wehad another hal an hour to benish.

Reason: We didnt have per-

mission rom the government,as it was not really clear should

we have it or not.Ways o solving the prob-

lem: We had to consult withpolice and governmental struc-tures beore the action. Tiswould have eradicated utureproblems.

Language Barrier Manyaction participants couldntspeak the local language, sosome o us had to questionpeople in English. As a resultwe didnt get as deep answers,as the Armenian speaking in-terviewers.

Reason: We couldnt haveall the local people in one

group.Ways o solving the prob-

lem: We should have plannedthe action better, and not donethe interviewing and the stick-ing at the same time. I wewould have done it separatelywe could have had more sup-

port o our ew Armenian par-ticipants.

76 77


40/43

Group EnvironmentTe environmental action

was an overall success becausethe public was very interestedand positive in the activities.People asked questions, inter-acted with activists and werecontent and happy with theengagement in the action, in-cluding eating cookies, playingin the park and contemplating

what trees could say.Tere were many positive

reactions, curious children,lots o humour in the reactionsand anything that lacked inthe action plan was made upby quick improvisation by theactivists.

For example, to get peoplemore involved in the park

scenerio, we invited them todraw owers and pictures onthe ake grass. Ater the action

the interaction with the public

continued as passersby wrotethings on the tree signs andnoticed the message.

Although the action waspositive there were a ew prob-lems that would have beenavoided or could be avoided ithe action is repeated.

It would have helped to

have a leaet in retrospect be-cause interested people wereasking or contact details oa local organisers and othergroups involved.

It would have been helpulto have brieng beore the ac-tions so everyone would havea clear message and how theyshould behave with the public,

media and police.More preparation or what

to expect, how to react, what

to say. We could have preparedpoints or interviews or howto have the public more inter-active, example to make theirown tree signs.

We could have had more

clear roles in terms o what weeach do and when to rotate thejobs.

Tere was some conusionwith materials and last min-

ute arrangements or sportsequipment, radio, etc. Teseitems would have added accentto the actions to make the mes-

sage more clear and give theactivists something to do andmore reasons to interact withthe public.

With more people in the ac-tion we could have had a bigger

presence and had clearer tasks to either be a tree, a policeperson, a public spokesperson,media representative.

A clear start/stopping time

would have made the actiongo more smoothly. We wereambitious to also perorm agarbage clean-up but therewas not enough time or people

resources to do this. So somepeople were still conusedabout the message o the ac-tion, this could have been

stated more clearly with signswhen we were walking aroundthe city or at the action loca-tions themselves (so, example,things about the environmentor lack o public space).

77


41/43

Part One - Message

Describe your message:______________________________________________________How clear was your message?

______________________________________________________Did people understand it?

______________________________________________________Are you satisfied with your message in total?

______________________________________________________

Part two - Tools

Describe the tools have you used in your action:______________________________________________________How difficult were your tools to produce?

______________________________________________________How innovative were they?

______________________________________________________How connected were your tools to each other?

______________________________________________________How related were your tools to the message?

______________________________________________________Are you satisfied with your tool in total?

______________________________________________________

Part three Place(s)

Describe your place(s)______________________________________________________How did your place fit with your tools?

______________________________________________________How frequent was your place?

______________________________________________________Are you satisfied with your place(s) in total?

______________________________________________________

Part four Contact

Describe in which ways have you tried to make contact with your public(which actions did you undertake):

______________________________________________________How well did you combine your personal activity with other tools?

______________________________________________________How inventive were you in using your personal skills?

______________________________________________________Are you satisfied with your personal activity in total?

______________________________________________________

Part five Reaction

Describe in short reactions of your public to your action______________________________________________________How did your audience react to your message?

______________________________________________________How did your audience react to the tools you have used?

______________________________________________________How did your audience react to your personal performances?

______________________________________________________Are you satisfied with the reaction of your audience in total?

______________________________________________________

Part six Overall

What was the best thing that happened during you action, and why?______________________________________________________What was the worst thing that happened during your action?

______________________________________________________Give more comments:

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

10

evaluation paper

example


42/43

You came home, hanged your hatand your coat. As your shues stoptorturing your eet and you areback to the comort o your soa,

your memories surround you...

Tis is the end o our journey.

We have travelled through all thephases o making a street action. Behind ourselves we have let a

message, a thing to talk about,a troyan horse in peoples heads.Te more they think about it, thebetter.

In the other way, this is not theend, but the beginning or just one

episode. We move on and carry allthat we experienced with us intonew actions.

good

bye

So, come on, dont be bitter now.Tere are many more places to vis-it, many more people to meet andmany, more good actions to make.Tis world is still not perect.

Until the next time!


43/43

Handbook for street activism by Loesje

Documents