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Migrating is not a crime
Top Manta proposes an afternoon of conversation, workshops and music to talk about the Mediterranean as a border, not as a tourist postcard. Based on the migrant experience, and from screen printing and sewing with recycled African fabrics, the proposal connects culture, anti-racism and social and solidarity economy to defend decent work and life without borders.
Dates and times
Wednesday, April 1, 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Address
Moll de Barcelona, Port Vell (Port of Barcelona). Near the World Trade Center. Stage.
Top Manta arrives at Art Explora with a day that is born of survival and is built as a collective struggle. A proposal that speaks of the Mediterranean not as a European dream, but as an imposed border: a sea crossed by plunder, migration policies and the lives that are left along the way.
The day begins with a participatory talk that starts from the experience of people who crossed the sea because theirs had been plundered. We give a name to what is often hidden: the law on foreigners, racism, police persecution and the criminalization of poverty. The public is invited to be part of a collective mural, transforming words into memory and memory into shared action.
Then, the fight continues with the hands. The screen printing and sewing workshops open spaces for collective production: screen printing as a tool for political expression and denunciation, and sewing with recycled African fabrics as a commitment to the circular economy, decent work and community knowledge. Produce without exploiting. Create without stealing.
The day closes with a DJ set by NEO, turning the space into a place of meeting, celebration and community. Because resisting also means occupying the space that belongs to us, sharing and dancing together.
Top Manta is not just a cultural proposal: it is a collective response to institutional violence and a way of organizing to say loud and clear that no person is illegal.
Top Manta is the clothing brand of the manters of Barcelona, a social and solidarity cooperative that aims to improve the living conditions of the group, get their fellow manters off the streets and create communication campaigns capable of explaining the injustices of the system in which we live. Since the beginning of the union, more than 200 people have been able to leave the manta, regularize their administrative situation, 15 of these people work in the brand's sewing and screen printing workshop. The Top Manta workshop, located in the Barcelona neighborhood of Sants, produces locally, following the criteria of the social and solidarity economy, for the same brand and for other projects, cooperatives, educational centers and projects that share the same values of social justice.
