Clare Cochrane

Ironically it is often at those times when democracy is most under threat that it is most alive. It’s when democracy is in crisis, or appears to have been kidnapped by a ruling elite, that citizens raise their voices louder, take to the streets. The last year and a half has been an amazing time for democracy – uprisings, occupations and huge public general assemblies showing that direct democracy is possible, that we can go beyond the yes / no, black / white of traditional political debate. It’s been inspiring, breathtaking, at times beautiful. Movements like Occupy have enabled people who have put up with the status quo for a long time to imagine something different.

But it’s also been a little bit intimidating, and I know that some people have felt left behind: people who have been disenfranchised by consumerism and apathy, people who have felt that they didn’t have enough (or any) political opinions to take part in the debate. People who felt stuck, and that the shouting wasn’t helping them to move forward. People who felt that they couldn’t get from silence to making enough noise to be heard above the new clamour.

The philosopher Hildegard Kurt points out that ‘debate’ comes from the French ‘debattre’, which contains the word ‘battre’ – to hit, and that all too often, that’s what political discussion is – a battle of back and forth, for and against. We take sides and don’t always listen carefully to each other. And we don’t allow for movement. Participants are expected to take a position, and stick to it. There’s no room for imagination, for creative expression of one’s evolving thoughts; there’s no room to move, to change position as one’s views shift on hearing other’s ideas.

Following the faux election of 2010, these things sat heavy with me. Like many people, I was inspired by the student uprisings of 2010, but also felt that despite the increasing political activity and campaigning, a lot of people remained left out of this upsurge of democracy, unsure of what they felt or thought, or of how to express their views. As an activist and an artist, I wanted to find a way to draw the people who felt disenfranchised in to democratic exchange, and to find a way of ‘doing politics differently’ – more creatively.

And so I developed Democracy Outside.

Democracy Outside creates a space where an embodied movement through ideas is made possible – even actively encouraged, where everyone listens to each other’s words, where taking sides is not the point as much as real exchange in a creative, open, non-judgemental environment. Part street theatre and part political action, and employing the iconography of protest – banner, placards, leaflets, a megaphone – Democracy Outside deliberately blurs the boundaries between ‘art’ and ‘activism’, and challenges apathy by making politics fun.

And because Democracy Outside takes place outdoors (you probably guessed that from the name) it liberates democracy from stuffy institutions and archaic structures, and disrupts the ever-increasing neutralisation and even privatisation of public space.

I’ve loved the reactions I’ve had to it so far: one campaigner confessed that he’d dragged himself along out of a sense of duty, wondering why he was off to yet another political thing on his day off – but afterwards he said he felt “full of joy”, re-energised. A local artist came away excitedly exclaiming, “I thought I didn’t have any political opinions but it turns out I have a lot to say!”

I was most moved, though, by the young people who took part. We had staged the performance by the war memorial in the centre of Oxford, where young people who feel themselves outsiders hang out in groups, smoking and avoiding school. These kids really do feel disenfranchised, but they took part with gusto, slamming a voting system where they felt their votes would never count, expressing their views on the right to protest, the freedom of the media, institutional sexism, and demanding the right to vote at 16, to have a say on wars where their friends were dying.

Now I’m planning DemO 2012 – the first UK tour of Democracy Outside. In June and July I’ll be staging Democracy Outside, with the help of local artists and activists, in Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Manchester. Supporters and local organisers include Edd Bauer, the Free University of Liverpool, and the Naked Vegan Cooks, performance poets, environmental and Occupy activists, permaculturists, and feminist artists. And we’re all doing it for free!

Unfortunately, the train tickets to get to these places, and printing leaflets is not free. So I’m crowdfunding to cover the project’s basic costs, through Sponsume. I think crowdfunding has to be the way to fund this project – because democracy belongs to all of us, and it won’t happen without a collective effort.

The project website (hosted by activist blog hosts network 23) is still in basic form – like democracy, it’s a work in progress – but it will soon be a place to follow the progress of the project planning. Meanwhile, if you want to take part or want to know more, please do get in touch with me at uninvisible71@gmail.com.