common over vacant, prints

computer generated models, series of digital prints
summer 2021

Excerpts from a project Gemeingut statt Leerstand in collaboration with Teresa Hoffmann and Stadtbodenstifung
supported by Berliner Projektfonds Urbane Praxis

10365, Berlin-Lichtenberg

Enterance 10365, Berlin-Lichtenberg

10115, Berlin-Mitte

Detail 10115, Berlin-Mitte

The project common over vacant took up public space in front of privately owned housing kept vacant. Leerstand (vacancy) stands in evidence of financialization of land and housing. The market value of a house kept empty on land rising in price expands, while the structure decays, turning uninhabitable. The vacancies often remain unregistered, slipping between the cracks of bureaucratic administration.

Common over vacant set up an open space refreshment and recording booth in each of the twelve official districts of Berlin. The residents, activists and passerby tell stories of forced evictions, of houses passed from owner to owner, of vacant housing appropriated as advertisement sites or neglected to the condition too fragile to occupy.

The digital models of vacant buildings were generated from multiple photographs taken at each site. Each model and its physical counterpart make up an emprty shell, a simulation of functional housing turned into flat tokens of value in financial speculation.

Arts of the Working Class, Issue 23 Fall 2022