Elephant

ELEPHANT A book about perspective, perception, media and limitations.

the publishing cabin

ELEPHANT July 2016 Texts: Actioners and visitors at ActionxChange 2016 Concept: Rudy Alejandro Herrera Mรกrmol and Ana Flecha Marco Layout and design: Ana Flecha Marco Made in Madrid

ELEPHANT

PROLOGUE Six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant’s body. One of them felt a leg and stated that an elephant was like a column, straight and robust. Another one felt the trunk and came to the conclusion that elefants were like branches, strong, yet flexible. The blind man who felt the tusk, said that elefants were hard and smooth, and sharp like a spear. For the one who felt the ear, the elephant was like a big fan.

The man who felt the belly, described the elephant as a wall, and the one who touched the tail thought of the animal as a rope.

All of them were right.

This publication is based on that story. Ten groups of people, most of them in their teens, were given a cropped picture of a historic event with no further context. They were then asked to write a piece of news based on that partial image. Once they were done, they shared their stories with the other groups and got to see the full picture.

Here you can read what they wrote. And at the end you will also get the full picture.

Ana Flecha Marco

INCIDENTS IN THE DEMONSTRATION AGAINST BREXIT IN LONDON Leyre Pueyo, Isabel Vicente & Paula MartĂ­n

This morning there was a demonstration against Brexit in the centre of London.

Around noon, things started to get violent: some radical activists attacked the police with molotov cocktails. This started a fight between the activists and the police and resulted in 30 injured and 18 arrested people.

HURRICANE IN BARCELONA Cynthia Desmet Villar, Arianna Giachini Gracia & Anna SimĂłn Serra

On a cold afternoon, a partially bald sixty year old man found himself in the midst of a stressful situation. He had attended a prize ceremony in the well-known city of Barcelona when a hurricane slowly approached towards the crowd. Stress, danger and fear were common emotions amongst the large group of people. As a result, everyone started to push each other, desperately trying to escape the unfortunate situation.

COLLAPSED RUNNER AT ANNUAL NORWEGIAN MARATHON

CHARITY RUN AGAINST GLOBAL HUNGER 50TH ANNIVERSARY

Isabelle Cassar Mireia Devesa Klaus Desmet

Pierros Pantoulis Mauro Vázquez Mathieu H.

At 2.15 on a cold Saturday afternoon, at the famous annual Norwegian marathon, 23 year old runner Zac Bonello collapsed for no apparent reason. As some of the runners were shocked, the marathon ended abruptly.

Tomorrow, 10th July 2016, marks the 50th anniversary of the Washington Race against Gobal Hunger. It first started in 1966 to combat malnutrition and hunger all around the world.

This event was a huge revolution to fundraising programs. A small idea which started with just over 300 participants, has become one of the greatest ways of fundraising worldwide.

We expect over 3000 participants to run at tomorrow’s 50th anniversary race and possibly over 100.000 $ in funds for the Global Hunger Association’s new programme in Swaziland. Swaziland will be generously represented in the race by its king.

This photo is from the first race in 1966.

THE ONE WHO DISAPPEARED Salomé Das Rocío Amaro Gema Benavides

“Sheila is such a pleasant girl, said monique Jackson in tears. “We would never expect her to just disappear.

She is a promising young lady who’s just finished her degree in Medicine”.

Her father, John Jackson, only has plesantries to say about her: “She is loved by everyone and extremely close to her family”.

Sheila Jackson, 28, was last seen on November 27th in Munich, Germany. She was outside a bank, ready to leave, when suspect Jack Brown, 52, was seen grabbing her without her consent. The photo was taken by the CCTV of the @MBANK. Brown was the last person to have seen her, so he is now our leading suspect. If you have any information, please contact www.legalpolice.com

If Sheila had any problems, she would never keep them to herself. She always informed her family on her whereabouts and so this came as quite a surprise.

42 STUDENTS KILLED AT CHICAGO SCHOOL SHOOTING

Ana López, Nayet Kademian and Enrique Rodríguez

Jack Brown has no apparent connections to the family, but the police are starting to look closer into the details.

His car plate number is WUV2506. If seen, please contact www.legalpolice.com

An empathetic middle-aged man tries to comfort a sad, struggling lady after she received the bad news. Her son appears in the list of victims.

AUTUMN HARVEST, ROMANIA, SEPTEMBER 2015 Paola Lupi Mika Pasanen

The autumn harvest in rural Romania had an unexpected change of plans. This year, the coming together of dispersed yet homogenous communities from the hillsides came to a halt. The senior members of each community stopped their relationship after a terrible conflict (the reasons for which are still unknown). As depicted in this picture, the younger members expressed too much freedom with each other and, when caught, fled to the fields.

LOVE DISAPPOINTMENT Gia Dao Martina

After years and years of war, people only hope for the day when they can come back to their old, peaceful days. But what would happen if you found out that the person you loved the most hadn’t waited for you to come back? This is exactly what happened to Sam, a soldier from the Vietnam war. He was heartbroken.

It was a rainy day of September when Sam finally came back home.

He couldn’t wait to see his

lover Sarah, his fiancée. But, unfortunately, she was no longer his. He came back to see Sarah and another man kissing each other in his own garden. They were kissing dramatically. Sam didn’t know what to do in this situation, he was shocked, screaming internally, depressed.

But that was unfair, wasn’t it?

Sarah had waited for him for years and she deserved to have a happy life. “Let it go”, he thought. Turning around, he left the past behind.

50 YEARS OF SHORTS Pedro del Rosal Deborah

On the 9th of June 1966, Foster Martins was taken to court and made spend a night in jail for “public indecency” because he was wearing shorts. This started what is now known as “the shorts shortage” movement, which pushed for the legalization of shorts all over Europe.

After Foster’s trial, pro-shorts activists revolted aggressively against the anti-shorts establishment, which led to an amendment of the 1963 Public Indecency Law. Today, on the anniversary of such a historic event, thousands gathered in London, where Foster Martins was first arrested in 1966.

MARATHON IN TOLEDO Ekin Fergan Ivana Prokesova

After a marathon held in Toledo, Spain, people from all around the world celebrated their achievements. Most of them were smiling happily after hours of effort in October 1993.

The weather was great, but some of our friends from warmer countries felt a little bit cold during the run and some wore long trousers to protect themselves from flies, since it was held in a rural, isolated place.

Participants, from ages 18 to 48, started the marathon in Toledo. We could see they were having fun from their smiling faces, and they all look forward to running again next year.

261

Kathrine Virginia Switzer was the first woman to run the Boston Marathon as a numbered entry, in 1967.

Switzer registered as “K. V. Switzer� and was issued a number: 261. When he noticed she was in fact a woman, race official Jock Semple attempted to physically remove her from the race.

And this is what this picture shows.

the publishing cabin 2016