Proyecto Autogestion at US Social Forum

Bridging the Gap: International Solidarity and Alternative Media in Mexico

June 28, 2007 – 3:30pm
Atlanta Ballroom D room at the Westin Hotel
United States Social Forum

Proyecto Autogestion is a new collaborative media project, which places cameras and editing equipment in the hands of communities in resistance so that they may be able to document their own histories and human rights situation.

Session Description:

In 1996, Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos read the following on behalf of the Zapatistas: “We declare that we will make a network of communication among all our struggles and resistances. An intercontinental network of alternative communication against neoliberalism, an intercontinental network of alternative communication for humanity.”

Today, the Zapatistas have reclaimed the airwaves, video, and cyberspace, with the help of Mexican national and international media activists who have now not only shed light on the struggle for indigenous rights and autonomy in Chiapas, but many other grassroots, community based resistances through out Mexico.

This workshop will be a space for all to share and learn about successes, failures, and potentials for international solidarity through media in Mexico. The presenters will be highlighting the similarities and differences between the Zapatista intuition and the resistance of the Oaxacan People’s Popular Assembly with respect to media. It will include videos, photos, and free bi-lingual bundles of the Zapatistas’ Sixth Declaration along with a presentation of Proyecto Autogestion’s debut film project El Machete: La Lucha por el Poder Popular, filmed by indigenous community members of Oaxaca’s Committee in Defense of the Rights of the People, and edited through collective workshops provided by Proyecto Autogestion.