In her series “New Territories. The ZAD Within You,” Kathrin Kloeckl Stan explores a form of deterritorialization inspired by the French protest movement known as the ZAD. The abbreviation ZAD stands for “Zone à défendre,” meaning “zone to be defended,” and refers to the activist practice of permanently occupying, protecting, and placing under self-administration areas (or zones) threatened by environmental destruction.

The ZAD, originally a utopian territorial experiment, becomes a spiritual principle in this series of works and is intended to spread into our minds, our bodies, and our immediate living environments.

Our autonomy, scope for action, and interpretive sovereignty over reality are increasingly subject to influence and restriction. It is essential, in an act of self-empowerment, to set boundaries, define our immaterial “zones to be defended,” and resist! The ZAD is within us! We are the ZAD!