This project focuses on two communities existing against the grain of capitalist hegemony. One situated in a wild yet docile valley in the hills of West Wales; the other a 4,000-acre rugged mix of wetlands, forest and farmland in the Pays de la Loire region of France.

The project was born from despair at present-day social inequality, as well as environmental disharmony.

‘Barricades & Christmas Cards’ follows from an interest in radical formations and how they might function within the framework of modern society.

Amid the turbulence of the global financial, environmental, and political landscape’ – Notre-Dame-des-Landes (La ZAD) and Tipi Valley both offer crucial insights into alternative ways of organising society on a micro, community level.

Tipi Valley – having existed on the same site since the late 60s – is surely one of the oldest and most historic alternative communities in Europe. While La ZAD is most likely geographically the largest.

Both could be hailed as successes, having achieved what they set out to do at their genesis – a rare achievement for radical formations…

Tipi Valley’s success lies in the story of how decades of Christmas cards between the community’s inhabitants were used as court evidence proving that residents had definitive right to live on the land.

La Zad’s success lies in the fact that protesters have not only defended farmers and the environment against the full (and violent) might of the French state, as well as one of the largest multi-national companies in the world from developing the land into a second airport for the city of Nantes through the means of direct action, but also how a thriving, egalitarian community has been built there based on cooperation and anarchist principles.