[matilda] a political explanatory draft

[Amparo P Gutierrez]

Following another intensive workday, I thought I owe an explanation to 
Matilda, the other Matilda.
I came here as a result of the g8-sheffield, where I contributed as a 
translator. My background also includes having lived in Christiania 
(Copenhagen) in the late '70s.
Back in 2005, as we were working on the Sydney works building, walking 
around, cleaning… some pieces of its past were made clear; I learned 
that it had been used (in the late '80s) by a group or several teams of 
women: some were multilingual poets, some were singers and musicians. I 
found a couple of books and thought that they (these activist Sheffield 
women) deserved some kind of hommage. As the communal art room was being 
decorated, this is its main theme: that's why you will now find some 
women singing on its walls.

My political sympathies rest, on a personal level, with anarchism in a 
wide sense. That's why you'll find some A symbols on the art space 
collective. Again, this is a tribute to the past, in this case my 
ancestors.

Following them, I would strongly disagree with any policies attempting 
to curtail, control or ban art spaces so that they are mainly devoted to 
very narrow-minded purposes such as banner-making: this is a very 
ancient discussion: tons of arguments could easily be found with little 
research.

I am very proud to be a part of Matilda and its art collective: 
inspiration, imagination to power, those slogans from the May 98 
revolution seem reincarnated somehow.


Love and painted hands,
Amp

PS: btw, how would you translate that famous slogan into English, 
original in French, but this is Spanish: "Colguemos al último burgués 
con las tripas del último burócrata"…

Which btw sounds brutal and anti-vegan... rather cannibalist...

but...