Statement released on 31st of July by Mačjak, the squatted anarcha-queer space in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Eviction festival to take place on 15th of August 2023:
After little more than a year of constructing, organising and maintaining the space known as Mačjak, we face an eviction notice that came into effect on the 1st of August.
Mačjak was always imagined as a temporary place for the anarcha-queer community in Ljubljana to explore its means and desires. It was our chance to try squatting for the first time after a 16-year void of political occupations in our city. Most of us who started the project were evicted in January 2021 from Autonomous Factory ROG (squatted in 2006) and moved into a shared space A-infoshop (built in 2003) in Metelkova (squatted in 1993). We needed to see what we could do by ourselves and what we wanted for ourselves. We first wanted a small garage to host our political art projects, but homeless sleepers already occupied this initial space. So we took a section of a small building which had been trashed. One couldn’t even see the floor, let alone lay on them. We figured this was a nice place. There was no access to electricity, but we managed to open the water. The first summer, we swept the walls off the floor and filled in the holes where electricity cables had been ripped out. We fixed the doors. It quickly became a place to spend time, and we invited other groups to meet there. It soon became a place where we could work, party, and feel safe, even though the site was attacked a few times. It became a place to build our community and nurture the anarcha resistance.
We anarchas – as part of the anti-gentrification movement – our primary enemies are the bosses and sheriffs who grab every tiny piece of space we struggle to have for ourselves in this overpriced over-polished hateful city. In the last years, we joined neighbourhood fights, protested the rising rent prices, campaigned against evictions of student homes, recognised the rise of homelessness during corona and, organised solidarity actions, emphasised the need to retaliate against gentrification processes in our urban atmospheres in broader assemblies and within our movement.
This month comes when we must fight our displacement in the city again. We are emptying a space built with love to make room for demolition machines ready to mow everything into gravel. In the following years, we will walk past the grave of Mačjak. It will probably remain an empty gated lot for a few years. The owner may rent it as a parking space for Teslas and SUVs. In the final instance, high sky phalluses with Airbnb luxury homes, petit crapes and Lidl. There is always Lidl – luxury for the few, shopping conglomerates for the people.
We decided to throw an eviction festival because we do not want to go quietly or want our last moments in Mačjak to be when we feel powerless. We want to fill the space with laughs and fun, good food and music, pool parties and protests with all the lovely people we already know and new people we are eager to meet.
Starting on the 15th of August and lasting until our energies run out (or until we move together into a new occupation story). We invite everyone to join our efforts of joyful militancy! When we stick together, we can spread the seeds of love and resistance around this concrete jungle.
Love and rage,
The anarcha resistance of Parmova
Mačjak
Parmova 1312
Ljubljana, Slovenia
crnemacke [at] riseup [dot] net
