Impeccable Vibes, Valencia Vibes
This September, our intrepid collective of translators gathered once again in the flesh to address some pressing co-op business matters and, of course, to have a good ole time. Assuming the constellation of Lara, Timothy, Alex, Marta and Sari (the author of these words), we set sail from our own astral planes and arrived in Valencia, our chosen port of call. This Mediterranean city delivered a healthy dose of leisure and was an ideal setting in which to ritualise our group dynamics. This may sound very serious and formal but, in reality, it included everything from howling in unison at the karaoke bar to swimming in the sea and drinking as much horchata as our bladders would allow. Although we could only do so much in five days, we quickly learned that there are no limits when it comes to horchata.
As per usual, arrival day – Wednesday, in this case – was dedicated to sitting down together and catching up and, this time around, getting used to the relentless humidity of Valencia.
Thursday morning (late morning) we set out for what would become our headquarters for the week, the Ateneu Llibertari del Cabanyal, an independently run community space – very punk and rough around the edges – to which we were welcomed with open arms. It also happens to be the home of Radio Malva, a non-hierarchical, radical community radio station. Once nestled into our hideout next to the zine library, we kicked off our first working session with a question that was as inspiring as it was odd:
What are your hopes and wishes for this gathering, both in reality as well as in a hypothetical bizarro parallel world?
After a round of brilliantly ridiculous responses (some including subterranean adventures with goblins, pirate ships and maritime science fiction) we proceeded to consult the tarot to reflect on our collective’s current state of affairs and future possibilities.
In this spread full of evocative red hues, the Fool speaks of our foundation: number 0 of the major arcana, it symbolises infinite potential, and it is a card that inspires bravery and the thrill of discovering new opportunities every day. The Fool has no idea what the future will bring but looks forward with a naïve and inexhaustible curiosity. The Queen of Swords warns us of current challenges. She combines mental clarity and intellectual prowess with the characteristic maturity and sensitivity of a powerful female figure. Lastly, the Warrior of Swords calls us to organise and make preparations. This impulsive figure is overflowing with energy but lacks direction.
Armed with this 3-card counsel, we dove into one of our favourite exercises: “a million post-its on a board” (also known as the SWOT analysis)! This colourful exercise has become one of our classics, as it always helps to identify our internal strengths and weaknesses and to compare them against external opportunities and threats. It is a very participatory exercise, with everyone continually adding ideas to the board like bees toiling together to keep the hive running.
Once the board was fully decked out in multi-colour fluorescent post-its, we all agreed that we have the enormous privilege of loving what we do and being able to count on our unity as a group as well as a vast repertoire of skills. That said, if we want Guerrilla Translation to be a sustainable source of liveable income that pays our rents and doesn’t require us to sell our souls to the capitalist devil, we need stronger promotional and outreach strategies (and possibly some fine tuning to our flexible economic model). After agreeing on the need for a community-expanding outreach campaign, we decided to set the dates for our Lovework Open Call, which will have just been announced in time for you to read these lines.
As you probably already know, Lovework and Carework are Guerrilla Translation’s heart and soul. Lovework consists of all the texts that we select ourselves, translate pro bono and publish on our blog or other pro bono work that we do for organisations with financial restrictions. The resulting translations become part of an open-access corpus of knowledge through which we generate commons. We came up with the idea of the Lovework Open Call as a way to invite the community to propose their own favourite texts and take a more active part in our mission. You can learn more about the call here.
The rest of the day was dedicated to reviewing one of this year’s biggest new projects: Metapolis, a bilingual digital magazine that explores different global challenges through innovative thinking, debate and imagination. Guerrilla Media Collective has partnered up with the team at Metapolis to take on the task of carefully curating content, which we then translate and edit. Right now we are preparing Volume 3, which will focus on the effects of the war in Ukraine on the current political and economic landscape throughout the world. If you’d like to learn more and read earlier volumes, visit Metapolis’ website or subscribe to their newsletter.
With our first working day complete, some of us seized the opportunity to take a walk on the beach. As we walked through the streets, we noticed how this old, working-class fishing neighbourhood, el Cabanyal, had retained its local character and charm – despite being located right next to the beach, it seems to have held onto its identity. Later we learned that a successful campaign against gentrification and tourism had been carried out in the area in order to protect people’s right to local housing. In some way we felt like we couldn’t have found a more appropriate or inspiring place to gather.
That evening, we had dinner at La Mandrágora, a vegan cultural and culinary association that proudly operates according to principles of anti-speciesism, transfeminism and anticapitalism. In this warm and welcoming collective space we had one of the most touching moments of the week when we finally met our amazing graphic designer Mireia for the first time in person (after years of working together online). Mireia is cofounder of the Makea tu Vida project and creator of our snazzy new website. Even though it was our first time face to face, without a computer screen separating us, it felt as if we had known each other forever.
I wish I could start this paragraph off by saying that we began Thursday well rested and recharged, but the sticky, humid weather had other plans for us, not to mention insomnia, heightened emotions and other physiological goings-on. To top it all off, we had reserved the whole day on Thursday to discuss legal and financial matters, by far the heaviest topic of the week. We began by answering a series of questions, prepared by our cohort Silvia (who couldn’t attend the meeting and was deeply missed) about our individual notions of what constitutes a dignified salary. We spent a large portion of the day discussing and testing out different modifications to our accounting model, and finally concluded that none of the options in question really stood out in terms of clear advantages. For a while we have been contemplating the idea of fixed salaries, something that came up again during this session, but by that time the brain fog had settled in and we were in dire need of a break.
We vowed to grab a quick dinner and go to bed early that night. We ate at the Centro Social-Bar El Terra in Benimaclet, where we were well fed with delicious food and enjoyed the very relaxed atmosphere and cheap beer. Despite our solemn vow to end the night early, we ended up taking the very scenic route on the walk home, a journey full of songs and hugging giant Ginkgo Biloba trees (definitely nothing to do with the beer, I swear!).
Friday began with one of the most emotionally difficult exercises: our own personal money stories. In this activity, every member searches back through their memories until they find the first time that they had an awareness of the existence of money. From there, everyone then traces the development of their relationship to money over the years until the present day. Suffice it to say that this exercise brings a lot of feelings to the surface. It is, however, also an incredibly productive and therapeutic activity that strengthens bonds by talking about shared traumas.
Once we had been through and recovered from the emotional wringer of finances and distributing tasks for our upcoming promotional campaign, it was time to get dolled up and loosen our vocal chords in preparation for our long-awaited karaoke night, now a tradition where all traces of modesty or inhibition are left at the door. The rest of the night is shrouded in a dense fog of jubilant celebration that doesn’t leave much to the memory.
On Saturday morning we were invited by Alex, our host and resident guerrillero in Valencia, for brunch in his home where we got to meet his lovely partner Olive <3. The rest of our plans for the last day together involved a lengthy visit to the botanical garden, where we had a photoshoot to produce some audiovisual material to use in conjunction with our participation in the lecture series Conversations with Gamechangers on February 11 (mark your calendars!).
I’ve never been one for goodbyes, and much less writing about them, so I’ll spare you the final hours and the collective onset of separation anxiety. This report is just another window into our reality: we’re a virtual community of dreamers and wordsmiths who are lucky enough to have found each other. If you’re reading this, thank you for supporting us in our fight for the dignity of the translation sector and our endeavours to explore models for collective self-governance that give care the recognition and value that it deserves.
Produced by Guerrilla Translation under a Peer Production License
* Article by Sara Escribano
* Translated by Timothy McKeon
* Edited by Alex Minshall
* Images by Guerrilla Media Collective