Gabriela Rendón and Miguel Robles-Durán — We Cannot Be Pessimistic
Reconstructed from the original truthisconcrete.org via the Wayback Machine. Source: wayback:truthisconcrete.org/interviews/we-cannot-be-pessimistic/:20150216
A conversation with the urbanists Gabriela Rendón and Miguel Robles-Durán from Occupy Wall Street on the future of the movement and the relationship between media images of tents and the concrete outreach in all parts of society. New York, 6 November 2011.
The conversation distinguishes between the symbolic camp in Zuccotti Park — with its iconic tents, signs, and media presence — and the less visible but arguably more important committees, sub-committees, and initiatives working to articulate demands and spread the movement throughout the city. ‘The camp has logistically come to its limit. It is a representation of the movement. But it is not the movement itself.’
As urbanists, Rendón and Robles-Durán bring a spatial analysis to the occupation: the physical space of the camp served as a catalyst, but the movement’s real work happened in the structures that extended beyond it — education committees, working groups, neighborhood assemblies. Their insistence that ‘we cannot be pessimistic’ reflects a strategic choice to sustain engagement beyond the spectacle of occupation.