On Mobilisation Exhibition, Out of Sight, Antwerp, Belgium

Feb. 28 - Mar. 30, 2025

No - TAV Tracks, Ellen De Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam, Holland

Jul. 26-27, 2025

This music video  accompanies the publication The Best of No-TAV, an album and songbook containing lyrics, notes, and music reinterpretations of 15 protest songs from the No-TAV struggle.

The song is a cover of a famous Italian pop song (Gli Anni by 883), an earworm that many Italians know by heart. Its lyrics were created by the movement itself and speak of the hardships of running a wintertime protest camp without running water, as well as of activists’ determination to face down the police. Like almost all protest songs within the No TAV movement, the song is situational, representing the specific struggles of a particular moment in the protest and transforming a time of hardship into an opportunity for communitas, as collective tensions and pressures are worked through in the struggle against the TAV.

The rearranged version of the song is accompanied here by an edited selection of video recordings used as evidence in a trial against the movement. The combination of the sweet, nostalgic affect evoked by the song and the violence depicted in the footage creates a stark contrast that underscores the dissonance between the protesters’ lived experience and the institutional repression they face.

Credits

Work by Davide Tidoni

Research: Davide Tidoni

Music Rearrangement, Audio Recording and Mixing: Davide Tidoni

Lyrics: Maleducanti, Valsusa

Voice: Mercedes Casali

Music source: "Gli anni" by 883

Video Source: Records of the trial for the events of Dec. 8, 2011

Video Editing: Davide Tidoni