MNF > Articles by: Madrid No Frills

Madrid No Frills

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Empty Spain: The Valley of Fornela

Just before the pandemic, photojournalist Melanie Guil visited a small Spanish town in León that, for decades, has been fading from the map. She asked the residents' of Fornela tell us their stories, and here they are.
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As Lavapiés’ food banks endure, it’s time to get involved

Vecinas de Lavapiés are an incredible group of neighbours serving daily meals and weekly food supplies to their fellow neighbours. They're the little sister of La Cuba, one of Lavapiés' first Covid-19 relief food banks, and Vecinas have joined forced with Plaza Solidaria, a long-standing local association you may have spotted distributing hot food on Plaza de Tirso de Molina over the years.
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Madrid’s ‘Tourist Saviour Complex’

Just as Spain was finally starting to recover from its last financial crisis, the deepest recession we’ve ever witnessed has only just begun. Poverty, inequality and reliance on precarious work inflicted by a decade of government-imposed austerity remains all around us, and the few tourists that trickle in today – just as their pre-pandemic forefathers did – continue to feed into this.
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Madrid’s golden age of commercial ceramic art

Welcome to the golden age of ceramic art that took Madrid by storm, until the dictatorship and renovation works meant that all these beautiful old works of art were covered, sealed up and entombed for a future accidental renaissance which is happening right now.
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Seven no-frills decades of Estrecho’s Bar Los Pepes

It’s mid-morning by the time sunlight illuminates the grey facade of this no-frills gem in Estrecho, but the neighbours have been visiting Los Pepes since sunrise, just as they’ve done for years for their desayuno of churros and bracing café con leche, writes Juan Carlo.
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Fighting for the future of El Rastro

Last Sunday, hundreds of market stall holders occupied the streets of the Rastro to defend their right to reopen their stalls and to preserve an ancient Madrid tradition. The same leafy street, lined with numbered buttons marking the location of each stall, was suddenly bustling again but with cries, chants and a live klezmer version of Bella Ciao. 
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#RegularizaciónYa: Spain’s anti-racism and anti-colonialism movement

Immigrant exploitation is all around us. Many of Spain's 600,000 undocumented migrants are essential workers, They pick Europe's vegetables and keep them cheap, they take care of the elderly, clean the hospitals, deliver us food, build our homes and allow us to stay confined in them during the pandemic. Institutional exploitation of immigrants must stop, and that is exactly what Regularización Ya are here to do. 
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Madrid Activism: Bilingual list of local grass-roots groups

Here you have an ever-growing list of Madrid grass-roots groups campaigning locally for a better world. Whether you're new to activism or have been campaigning passionately since you could first hold a banner, we hope this resource will be useful to you.
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We’re running out of time to abolish Spain’s oppressive 2015 ‘Gag Law’

One hot summer night in 2015, protestors gathered outside Congress, quietly sitting cross-legged on the pavement with blue gags tied around their mouths and with their hands behind their backs. Their timing was key, protesting until the clock struck midnight on Wednesday 1 July – the moment their actions would suddenly become unlawful.
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El Alamín: The utopian ghost town on the outskirts of Madrid

El Alamín, meaning 'the world' in Arabic, is an abandoned village on the outskirts of Madrid. A walk along the three streets of El Alamín reveals the world that a pro-Franco solider intended to build there in 1956. Juan Claudio Güell y Churruca, also known as the fourth Marquis de Comillas, fought on the national side during the Spanish Civil War. His militant legacy influenced the utilitarian architecture and planning of El Alamín: it's of a communist-style with a touch of Christianity, established to populate tobacco and cotton farmers.