Adbusting in Barcelona: Paper Airplanes Against Airport Expansion, Part 1
In September, we were in Barcelona for the "Finnish Ads Ban" event. There, we met some adbusters from Barcelona. We participated in an action against the airport expansion. It was very well planned and received extensive media coverage. We're even considering bringing the idea to Berlin. But not everything went smoothly: The police got wind of the action… Why we still found it a great experience. Here's Part 1 of our super exciting, multi-part report. More parts of BRACELONE - THE SAGA! to follow!
Off to Barcelona!
A delegation from our group attended the “Ban Fossil Ads Gathering” in Barcelona from September 12th to 14th, 2025. The conference brought together about 50 activists, lobbyists, lawyers, and academics from Western Europe, the Congo, and the USA. The goal was to launch campaigns to ban advertising for fossil fuel products.
Against the Airport Expansion
At the conference, we met people who are organizing actions against the (renewed) airport expansion in Barcelona. The city is already suffering from overtourism and a housing shortage. The last remaining section of a nature reserve in the Llobregat River delta is slated to be paved over for the airport. Incidentally, these plans are not being pursued by the "evil" Spanish central government, but by the supposedly nice and friendly Catalan local government.
Exciting Adbusting Action Idea (EAAI)
To protest this, adbusters from Barcelona have come up with an exciting adbusting action idea (EAAI for short): Fold posters in advertising displays into paper airplanes and scribble "Caiguda Lliure" or "Free Fall" on the resulting blank space (defuser): A super simple and easily recognizable action idea!
Subvertising-Guerrilla Action at the City Festival
They envisioned their action taking place within the context of a neighborhood festival, both in terms of timing and location. They anticipated that everyone at the festival would wonder what it was all about. And after the regular changeover day on Tuesday (like in our area), the group planned to send a press release to the city's newsrooms, who they hoped would all have attended the festival. And Tuesday, September 16th, is also the "International Day for Saving the Ozone Layer." The media loves such connections.
Extensive Media Coverage
The plan worked. Two major daily newspapers reported on it:
Sandra Vicente wrote for El Diaro, a left-liberal newspaper published in the capital, on September 16th. A report:
Balma Simó reported on this for the Barcelona-based regional newspaper El Periodico on September 17th. (Unfortunately, no image of the action):
Environmentalists also covered the action:
https://www.ecologistasenaccion.org/347725/
Many beautiful pictures of the action can be found here:
https://multimedia.ecologistasenaccion.org/Catalunya/Cauen-avions-a-Barcelona
We also think the idea of posting a tutorial for folding the posters online and encouraging everyone to do it anytime, anywhere is really fun and well done:
German Armed Forces connection?
We're considering whether the paper airplanes could have a German Armed Forces connection. Here are some initial experiments that still need some work:
If you have any ideas on how to turn this into a coherent campaign, please send an email to w2a@riseup.net
Busted in Bracelone!
Stay tuned for part 2 of our report! It's called "Busted in Bracelone!" It's going to be very exciting and thrilling, because the operation went spectacularly wrong: Two arrests, three identity checks, and the cops probably collected all the data of the conference participants. The second part of our series „BRACELONE-THE SAGA!“ describes how it all happened and what we learned from it!
More info:
Solidarity posters in Barcelona in response to the court case in Berlin:
https://antifawerkstatt.noblogs.org/post/2025/10/01/adbustings-basteln-in-barcelona/
Lots of pictures of the Paper Planes action:
https://multimedia.ecologistasenaccion.org/Catalunya/Cauen-avions-a-Barcelona
The Paper Planes tutorial mentioned:
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