Inflatable barricade training for December 12(D12) . The word “barricade” comes from the French word “barrique” meaning “barrel”. The first barricades were hollow barrels rolled out into 16th century streets, filled with stones and secured with metal chains. Tools for Action, a Berlin-based arts collective, developed a barricade with a similar construction principle. Modular lightweight sculptures made of insulation foil are filled with air and attached together with velcro. A set of cube-shaped units (like cobblestones) can be quickly inflated at different locations, forming a line that hinders sight and movement when brought together en masse. They can be more than walls though – when people throw the individual cobble- stones into the air, they turn a street into a spontaneous playground.
Barricade in Paris of 1944, used for the liberation of France.
In Paris, the city where the concept of a barricade originated, Tools for Action has invented a new type of inflatable blockade in preparation for protest at the 2015 UN Climate Summit. The inflatable barricades were ´Made in Paris´ and sent to different climate activist groups around the world to be used on December 12.
Portable inflatable barricade kit sent to New York. 5.12.2015
Actions in the United States and London
The inflatables have been sent in packages to activist groups in New York, Portland and London marked “Fabriqué á Paris.” The inscription refers to the climate conference taking place in the city under a state of emergency. It also refers to the barricade being invented in Paris in the 16th century.
Inflatable Blockade of tracked gas pipeline in Westchester, New York. 11.12.2015.
Blockade of the offices of the US Forest Service in protest of logging in the Mt. Hood National Forest, Portland. 11.12.2015.
The inflatables have already been used to blockade the offices of the US Forest Service in protest of logging in the Mt. Hood National Forest and a construction site for fracked gas in Westchester, New York. This tactic addresses the fact that climate change is a global problem that needs a site-specific direct response.
“Red Lines are not for crossing”
A red line is drawn across these infatable barricades, symbolizing the demands drawn up by the Coalition 21, a network of 130 civil-society organisations. The red line entails a drastic and immediate reduction of greenhouse emissions and a recognition of the historical responsibility of industrialized countries. It also demands the installation of a monitoring system with the authority to penalize transgressors, and sufficient financing from more economically developed countries for a global transition to clean energy, including compensation for the suffering and loss that climate change has caused.
Inside the inflatable studio where we gave skill-share workshops how to make the inflatable barricade.
The barricades were assembled by hundreds of helping hands, connecting French farmers opposing a destructive airport, locals from the Montreuil neighbourhood in Paris and solar panel engineers from California. The construction studio in the social center Jardin d’Alice was a meeting point for discussions, skill sharing, and imagining how this simple tool can be used.
