to: Craft > #33 - How to Make a Barricade
Molly Steele, Détournement par des Fleurs, shot April 2018 in New Orleans on 35mm film
What can a barricade look like? What can it feel like? Can we build barricades which both defend us from this world and show us what another one might look like?
How to make a barricade
Laurin Guthrie
Find your friends.
Collect your materials: sandbags, trash cans, scooters, cars, materials from a development construction site, dumpsters, pallets, furniture, old mattresses, crowd-control barricades, or anything else that’s heavy and hard for one person to move alone.
(If you’re in a hurry, skip to step 4.) Come up with a design with your friends. If it helps, sketch it out. Do this on paper, which can be destroyed; data lives forever. How can you build something that serves more than one purpose? Can your barricade incorporate a garden? Does it have spots for decoration and ornamentation? What can you make your barricade look like? A lighthouse? The shared space you’ve always wanted in your community but never imagined could be made real? Can you use the barricade for all of its purposes, and will it still defend you?
Assemble your barricade. Make it hard to scale or walk around. If you’re in retreat, fire can also be a material.
Find joy with your friends in the things you have built and the life you are building.
Biography
Laurin Guthrie
She/Her/Hers
Written by Kae Lorentz
Laurin Guthrie (1989–????) would prefer to not be perceived. She is somewhere between four and six feet tall and probably human. Evidence that she has feet, however, is scant; further in-person observation is necessary. She apparently smells like green tea and saltwater. Guthrie is possibly based in Oakland, may or may not have a dog named Rosa, and I’m pretty sure (but not positive) that her practicum is on communal luxury. She is particularly aware of surveillance and mass communication.
Though elusive, Laurin Guthrie is, in fact, relatively non-hostile—even friendly. Lucky witnesses may hear her patiently explain obscure leftist vocab words or discuss the intricacies of textile production with a delightful sense of wry wit. She can be spotted frolicking in her garden, perhaps sunning herself on a warm rock or nurturing a wide array of mostly local herbs. Occasionally, she’s even known to put them to particularly good use in the kitchen. Guthrie is one of the few living people known to have both read and actively enjoyed the work of Deleuze and Guattari, evoking both admiration and a Biblical sort of fear in her friends.