last year i had the honor of working on a project with many incredible folks via the translation and publishing of a book about Los Torogoces de Morazán, “the musical expression of the salvadoran revolution” comprising oral testimony from Benito Chica Argueta (Sebastián Torogoz), a founding member of the group, in addition to firsthand accounts by others who collaborated, struggled, or danced with the cultural collective throughout the 1980s. against this backdrop of revolutionary airwaves, firsthand testimony, and international solidarity, the project (and a humble but meaningful midwest tour) wielded historical memory as a tool against a politics of forgetting and denial, one happening now. the meaning of the past is in continual dispute.
copies low but still available @almadeizote@other.forms@ingabooks , but most importantly listen to the music at almadeizote.com/torogoz, which regardless of what languages you speak i feel confident you will feel the charge of. aside from all those who struggled, the book is de facto dedicated to Padre Rogelio Ponseele, a belgian priest who since 1970 laid the way for liberation theology and base communities in el salvador, and who passed away (on the anniversary of San Óscar Romero’s death) shortly after the spanish edition launch
apropos of all the imperial interventionism happening—more than i can even keep up with since thinking about writing this near the end of last year—and the oppression from Bukele’s unconstitutional regime and rising count of political prisoners, i wanted to share a song from Los Torogoces playing on Radio Venceremos, who are introduced as: “breaking the bars of our country’s prisons to bring their message of solidarity to political prisoners compas on hunger strike.” (((lyrics in comments))) i’m not totally certain but it’s possible the hunger strike in mention is in august of 1981, coordinated between Ilopango, Mariona and Santa Tecla by the Comité de Presos Políticos de El Salvador (COPPES), whose slogan was “Let’s make prison a trench of the revolution.” scenes of the time are eerily similar to atrocities playing out today, seen in the struggle of contemporary groups like BRP and MOVIR
Recently published in collaboration with Red de Reproducción y Distribución (@erreerrede ): Mimeograph Chronicles 謄写版クロニクル by Bruno Ruiz Nava 🇲🇽 👹 🇯🇵 🌀 a result of research on the origin and uses of the mimeograph, or gariban and toshaban as it is known in Japan, produced on the occasion of an exhibition “Gariban Otaku Society” and residency at, and with generous support from, the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum. Photos courtesy of Nagano Satoshi.
The mimeograph tool is a simple, portable press made of wood and shaped like a briefcase, containing inside a mesh frame and a roller. Easy to transport and ideal for small organizations—schools, offices, or political groups—it enables mobility and autonomy in printing, allowing its users to produce materials and grassroots communication quickly. 📄 🧰 ♻️ Originally introduced at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago by Thomas Edison, where his Japanese counterpart Shinjiro Horii’s concurrent contributions went overlooked as an essential part of the process, having developed within the context of Japanese paper making the stencil paper needed for the use of the machine.
Through a visit to the Daito Tosha-Technical Archive Museum in Gifu Prefecture, a museum which exhibits an extensive collection and history of mimeograph printing, the pamphlet recounts the history of gariban in Japan as an industrial, artistic, and pedagogical tool. Via the writing of KuroDalaiJee, the work of 1960s Japanese underground artist Asai Masuo is featured, a pioneer of hippie communes and what’s known as the mini-komi zine community—“a pre-digital social network.” 🪨 🖨️ Asai’s work with coal mine labor movements and his pedagogical approach to children’s art is highlighted.
Design by Jacob Lindgren (@lacobjindgren )
Printing by Y’ALL WALL ヨールウォール (@yallwall_printing )
We fight our own fight.
Rejecting all interference from adults
We stand on autonomous ground
We continue fighting
To fulfill our promise of destruction and creation
Rooted in the children’s own fundamental desire
– “Itan no kodomo tachi no sengen” (Manifesto of the Heresy Children)
Back in stock via a 2nd edition: ZOO Index Reader (volume 1) 🦧🌀🐊🐞🐆 by Terezie Štindlová @terezie.stindlova 🐘🦜 and edited by Jacob Lindgren @lacobjindgren 🐬🦬🐢🦑🐏
ZOO Index Reader is based on an ongoing project, ZOO Index, which examines the relevance of zoos and how they shape our gaze towards nonhuman animals, and by extension, ourselves and one another. 🎥🪞Through a mixture of visual research and written contributions on the history of menageries, the confinement and privatization of land, zoo architecture, pets, the “naturalization” of animals, and the roles of zoos and animals in the history of cinema, this first volume asks: Do we need zoos? What does a meaningful coexistence with animals look like? Why have we decided to give a balloon to an elephant? 🎈🐘
with contributions by A+E Collective @a.e.collective , Chanelle Adams @plant_selfie_ , Animals as Objects?, John Berger, David Hancocks @davidhancocks , Eliot Haworth @eliothaworth Institute for Postnatural Studies @instituteforpostnaturalstudies , Jacob Lindgren, Suzanne van der Lingen, Angelo Renna @renna.angelo , Laurel Schwulst @roombaghost , Terezie Štindlová, and Richard Weller
Available in-store, at i-n-g-a.com, or for stocking in bookshops via IDEA @ideabooksnl
🐛 in the big 🍎
"Cross-pollinating across publishing ecologies" 🐞 🪢 📚
- a bookshop pop up and open-ended conversation about ecosystems for books with Shisi Huang (of @bungee.space / @3standardstoppage ), Oscar Salguero @softcoreny (of @interspecieslibrary ), and Jacob Lindgren @lacobjindgren (33.33% of @ingabooks )
🌱 🐜
12/8, Sunday 11am–6pm (free, all welcome)
Jacob Lindgren, co-founder of Inga will hangout at Bungee, temporarily docking the book-ship with a selection of publications of his own and from Inga's imprint and network of collaborators, across themes such as: biocultural relations, primitive reading, political ecology, brick works, dog role-play, the zoological gaze, and totemic animals.
12/11, Wednesday 7pm–9pm (RSVP needed)
An open-ended conversation about spaces and ecosystems for books with Oscar Salguero (Interspecies Library), Shisi Huang (Bungee Space/3standardstoppage), and Jacob Lindgren (Inga Books).
𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 (𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞) 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐚 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐞/𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐝𝐨? 𝐋𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞, 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭-𝐭𝐨-𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭: 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬, 𝐬𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐬, “𝐝𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐬,” 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬, 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐭, 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬/𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲. 𝐔𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞, 𝐰𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐲𝐨𝐮!
tomorrow SATURDAY @watershed.art.and.ecology 11am-2pm join @almadeizote + @schoolofmanyquestions + @catscradledundee and “make the whole world a school” in a workshop aimed at learning together about the historical and current struggle in central america via the role of popular education, community radio, and liberation theology 📡 a portion of the workshop will consist in developing/imagining a “broadcast”
suitable for everyone, young and old, no matter your level of knowledge or familiarity with the subject matter and will be accessible for both spanish and english speakers
for your sunday listening, Broad-casting: on self-organized spaces and learning 🌞🔊 a radio show originally played @indexartbookfair with the help of Radio Spugna—a spongey, precarious, and extra-educational radio for peer-to-peer knowledge and contamination/collaboration 🧽🌀 now archived online at both @radiospugna and Radio @r_o_b_i_d_a , who spoke collectively about planting seeds for learning-with
🌱 Broadcast seeding is a method of planting that involves scattering seeds over a relatively large area, without concern for precise spacing or depth, and especially useful for cover crops which prevent soil erosion and help maintain biodiverse ecosystems. This radio program departs from this etymology (broadcast, “dispersed upon the ground by hand”) and similarly seeks to cast a broad net(work) of friends, comrades, and collaborators interested in planting ideas/readings/conversations/sounds about self-organized spaces (plots) for peer-to-peer (permaculture) learning and modeling (growing) ecosystems for grounded knowledge production in opposition to the increasingly monoculture, walled gardens of higher education. A follow up to “Radio Ven, Seremos”—a collection of text excerpts, poetry, and conversations charting ways of coming together as “guerrilla welfare”—voices responses to questions like: “Who is learning for?” “What does the university have that we want? That we don’t?” “What would a school look like built from scratch?”
tracklist below
atrás de lo artístico en lo militante, y viceversa, en el cine de guerrilla e imprenta insurgente salvadoreño de los 70s/80s @museodelapalabraylaimagen 🎥🛠🧰 con la buena compañía/enciclopedia que son @malaxacion@handy_cams@fran.omarx@primaveratania entre otr@s
“looking for the artistic in the militant, and vice versa, in salvadoran guerrilla cine and insurgent print of the 70s/80s”
back in print, in its third edition: A Primitive Reader (no. 1) 🛠🛖 writing and reproductions of texts surrounding perceptions and projections across anthropology of the “primitive,” originally made for Open sheds used for what?, an exhibition space on a “vacant” lot in pilsen by @marinaresende.s and @ceciliaresende.s
the booklet includes an essay on cinema as stone-carving, Marx’s “primitive accumulation,” primitive architecture built for YouTube, LARPing “primitives,” guerrilla welfare and natural farming, NASA’s land survival training, how to “read” primitive, and Ishi—“the last known member of the Yahi people” employed as a museum janitor by Ursula K. Le Guin’s father, anthropologist Alfred Kroeber 🧰 in addition to facsimile copies of texts from A Natural History of Vacant Lots, Michael Taussig, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, and lots more, plus photocopies of various books about dwellings and and the so-called Society of Primitive Technology
available @ingabooks all copies (in midwest or shipped locally) include a pouch of native wildflower and grass seed, with a list of the contents on the last page 🌼🌾 if you get some, i’d love to see what blooms 🖨 copies of everything, and lots more reading in the periphery, live at: https://www.are.na/jacob-lindgren/a-primitive-reading-room
earlier this year I spent a few days in the archives of the International Institute of Social History in amsterdam, whose collection focuses on on labor and social movements across the globe. without entirely knowing what they contained or what I was in for, I pulled and look through lots of containers and folders with handmade reports, leaflets, newspapers, and publications from what was basically a “who’s who” of (at the time) burgeoning revolutionary organizations and social movements in El Salvador in the late 70s and early 80s—Frente de Accion Popular Unificada, Radio Venceremos, Bloque Popular Revolucionario, Frente Democratico Revolucionario, Central de Trabajadores Salvadoreños, Socorro Jurídico del Arzobispado, Comisión de Derechos Humanos de El Salvador, Comite Pro-Libertad de los Presos y Desparecidos Politicos (del BPR), Comite de Madres y Familiares de Presos, Desaparecidos y Asesinados Politicos de El Salvador (CoMadres), and Fuerzas Populares de Liberación Farabundo Martí, among others. here are a few photos of publications, around 1/100th of what I photographed (namely their interiors, lots of communiques between organizations and articles)
not only were there prominent publications from each group, but lots of seemingly one-off or hardly circulated internal booklets, booklets made for distribution in guerrilla zones of control, documents, and handmade (and annotated) leaflets and reports, a good amount which seemed like they were for circulation on the streets and others as communiques and statements to the press. lots of the human rights reports, lists of hundreds of murdered and disappeared persons, had notes along the margins or circled individual cases/names. a lot of the material was from various presses/imprints/periodicals assosciated with the organiations, and many had stamps or addresses (globally) forming an international network of distribution. it was harrowing and heartbreaking to see a lot of material with parallels to El Salvador today—fraudulent elections, torture, the disappeared, mothers looking for their children.
(cont. in comments)
broadcast last week on 🛰🔊 @montezpressradio , now archived, an @aredotna channel walkthrough of “anti-institutional chair,” around 10 years worth of (in 15 minutes) personal stories, photos, films, and collected readings about “the chair as a tool, or support structure, for thinking/resisting/rebuilding environments for learning, either as a means of obstruction in the reproduction of an evermore corporate and violent educational system, or as a means of constructing what we want to see instead” 🪑🛠 or just a place to sit while doing so
from my failed first day of work at a universidad El Salvador “tomada” to the destruction of gorizia mental hospital by its patients, to anti-university london (shoutout @antiuniversitynow ), to comrades @malcriadocrack ’s chair-monument-memory and Evening Class’ diy furniture, to @ekagd_ma students’ stand-in school (@seanyendrys@andrewjbeltran ), to @orozaernesto ’s “sillas corregidas” (corrected chairs) in Cuba, and ending with the recent wave of student occupations in support of a free Palestine
thanks to @meggmillerr for organizing and arranging! 🎛 all the material is at https://www.are.na/jacob-lindgren/anti-institutional-chair
“We put a lid on the bourgeois project, the national museums will be be stored in their very own archive, the Institutes of Contemporay Art will be handed over to the artists unions, the Universities and Academies will be handed over to the students, Siemens and all the other global players will be handed over to their workers. The state now acts as an administrative unit - just as neoliberalism has suggested it - but with mechanisms of control, transparency accountability and equal rights for all.” –There is no alternative: THE FUTURE IS SELF-ORGANISED
🌎🌍🌏 book day seems like good timing for this send off to what was one of my favorite publishing projects, F.R. DAVID, “a typographical journal, dealing with the organization of reading and writing...”
after 17 years the last issue was for “Erratum” and a call to include something which might have fit in a previous issue. “Timeline of Non-human Cinema” was my contribution, a suggested addendum to the “Recognition” issue, which was concerned with bodies, ecology, empathy, gazing at the world, and reading (environments) from non-anthropocentric POVs
somewhat fittingly, accidentally the group of pages fell through the cracks and didn’t make it into the print version, making the contribution listed in the book *itself* erratum, and printed separately for ad-hoc inclusion (with some errors that throw the timeline out of chronological order—oops). As F.R. DAVID himself sings in his 1982 hit single: “words don’t come easy” but it fits well between Simone Forti’s ‘Sleep Walkers / Zoo Mantras’ 🐘🐊 and Vilém Flusser’s “Paths” 🥾🌀 on the paradoxical connection between the concepts of nature and culture. Thanks to editor Will Holder
here are some zoomed in scenes from the booklet, which goes from 14,000-10,000 B.P. stone age cave drawing cinema to computer FPS hunting games to Deborah Stratman’s geolithic Last Things. copies available as a free takeaway at Watershed @watershed.art.and.ecology , where Last Things screens tomorrow (the 24th) at 6pm!
