Manifest

Permanent Vacation
Ten points for a revaluation of free cultural spaces


Modern society is caught up ever more in bureaucracy and rules. In such a society it is of crucial importance that there are places where the urge to design rules is reined in and where room will be created for free cultural spaces.
There are free cultural spaces on land, at sea and in the air: walls, buildings, plots of land, canals, the ether, the world wide web. Free cultural spaces are nobody's everymansland without rules.
In a society with too many rules the autonomous value of free cultural spaces as the driving force behind new creative developments needs to be recognized. There is a need for 'freespatial culture': for (semi-)permanent and temporary spaces where people can blow their mind.
The image of city and country is to a large degree defined by the creative force it can generate. For dozens of years free cultural spaces have been very important in this respect. These spaces are very well suited to explore the unknown and to push boundaries.
The attractiveness of cities is not limited to the economy and employment. Nowadays production no longer derives exclusively from the hands of people, but also (and mainly) from their heads. A challenging creative atmosphere and a free cultural climate are therefore at least as important. An unbound experience of space and time pays off.
People of all stripes meet each other in free cultural spaces. By their charisma they reinforce the bonds between city-, land- and neighbourhooddwellers, and by their hospitality they foster a versatile cosmopolitan society.
The culture of free cultural spaces is at odds with the proliferating gentrification. In stead of wanting to get rid of unwelcome (less affluent) elements, in order to upgrade neighbourhoods or districts, free cultural spaces stand for diversity and mutual solidarity. No equalization of the abnormal, but a welcoming of the extraordinary.
In opposition to the increasing pressure of rules and gentrification free cultural spaces emphasize the production of disorder, to bring life back into soulless urban landscapes. Sometimes moving out or subsiding for metropolitan developments is unavoidable, but it is in the interest of all to keep the value and the functioning of free cultural spaces intact.
Inhabitants and users of free cultural spaces are responsible for the realization and internal organization of them. The authorities provide space and play an active role in the enabling of new free cultural spaces.
City councils take care of an even distribution of free cultural spaces. Everywhere Zones Of Opportunity (ZOO's) arise, in the center as well as in the periphery. It is the responsibility of the community as a whole to provide for alternative locations when old spaces disappear.