The lines drawn on land to claim ownership and demarcate property have had widespread ramifications on forming divisions—between race, class, ecologies, and social groups, amongst others. In the United States, the commodification of land is now so deeply entrenched with economic and social policies that it often is used as a form of economic support in the wake of dwindling forms of social security. Not only does this amplify divisions between classes, but these policies reify in formal decisions that reaffirm this status quo.
Despite the pervasiveness of commodified private property models, these are relatively nascent when compared to the history of the city and how humans have lived. Life After Property examines how the territory, neighborhood, block, and home can be reclaimed for more collectivized ways of living and being.
The five projects presented consider techniques such as resistance, decommodification, commoning, re-graining, and framing, to offer more equitable ways of distributing resources—forming solidarity, community control, and forms of care to combat precarity.
Featured projects include “Commoning Domestic Space” (2020), “The Center Won’t Hold” (2021), “Lots Will Tear Us Apart” (2023), “Staking the Land” (2020), and “This Land is Your Land” (2022-23).
