Upon being invited to participate at La Biennale, Al Borde replied with two premises for their exhibition, even before knowing the form it would take. The first was to acknowledge that they are cannon fodder, unable to dedicate their work to anything that is not urgent, running against enemy fire while trying to survive to keep doing what they know. The second was to identify that which is strictly necessary. Money is not the only resource and not even the most important. There are other resources or forces available that can make a difference and win a battle: motivation, dullness, organization, even the will to mess things up.
As idealistic as it may sound, the work of Al Borde does not fall into the cliché of the naïf world saving romanticism.
It is not even anarchism. Al Borde operates within the system, with a deep understating of constraints and the clarity that even if for a marginal victory, every battle is worth fighting. It is the rebellion of counterculture put to service of the common good. It ultimately reveals the importance of working within a given framework: either you accept it—a condition for any real battle—or you opt to remain in the comfort zone of complaining intellectually and theoretically about the framework and never actually do anything about it.
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