The individuals of a collective do things together, despite their differences. “Each person is a walking directory…” 集。群。體。正因為個別的不同，個人自主受到尊重，所以，能一起前進，共負一軛，沿途照應，你是我的地圖，我是你的另一張地圖。每個人都各自是一個索引目錄。
**feature image: kitchen floor during cooking, 8 February 2020 (Michael Leung)
2020.02.14 The Collective
The collective is an eclectic group of people who find each other, on the road to emancipation. They are determined to live autonomously, free from states who oppress and dominate in numerous ways. [1] The collective live and farm together, building cabins and breweries, collecting fire, and always cook and dance in the kitchen whilst preparing each meal. They eternally welcome others, to live in their spaces, eat from their harvests, read their bookshelves and connect to their wifi—all without expecting anything in return. They would say, Stay as long as you want.
The collective is a rhizome, where each member increases the resilience of all collectives (the constellation) by making gestures and exchanges, such as travelling one day per week to help other collectives, growing and sharing tea (No more industrial teas please!) and gifting boxes of organic potatoes and crates of organic apple juice to each other. The collective shares everything, and everyone that they know. Each member is a walking directory of agriculture, comrades, struggles and tactics. We constantly learn from each other and in these exchanges, we are common, in everything we use, build and create, together.
The collective reminds us of how to hug each other, like when you haven’t seen your best friends from secondary school in a couple of years. Like them, the collective is an extended family, spanning the world.
Friday 14th February 2020, T.
Notes:
[1] Austerity, discriminative policies, repression, structural violence, neoliberal capitalism, etc. Following an informal sharing about the Anti-Extradition Bill movement in Hong Kong, one comrade asked how they could support the movement locally. I shared a story about a group who protested at their country’s China Embassy. It seemed to work.
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ON LAND 01: NoTAVs Everywhere 「在地」一：反高鐵馬拉松 […]
Michael Leung’s <ON LAND> series
