CAPITALISM IN THE PUBLIC REALM – Site Specific Activism
Real Estate Representation – A Situation and Time Specific performative installation by Anne Katrine Senstad in collaboration with The City of New Orleans/NEW ORLEANS REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY. LOT: 2138 Deslonde Stree, Lower 9th Ward. New Orleans. Lot size: 4154 sq ft/ 386 sq m. Rent : 1 $ for 6 months, May 31 – Nov 31 2009.
About The Real Estate Representation Project.
The site specific project Real Estate Representation consists of renting the lot of a former house swept away by Hurricane Katrina located at 2138 Deslonde Street, and staging a gestural installation by constructing a symbolic fence using pink ribbon and flags to isolate, measure and determine property borders to the adjoining lots at 2138 Deslonde Street in The Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans bordering The Holy Cross neighborhood.
L9 was the hardest hit neighborhood from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, where the remaining empty lots are remnant footprints of former homes where the families have been displaced, most of them to not return due to social and economic demography. As a performative staged statement about gentrification, speculative disaster economy and opportunistic real estate manipulation, I rented the lot at 2138 Deslonde street for 1 $ from The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority and the City of New Orleans, attempting to isolate issues of forthcoming gentrification of the disaster real estate climate, that we also see in Detroit post-automotive industry crash.
Documentation of the rented L9 property at Deslonde street consists of photography, video and a lease agreement with the city of New Orleans.The symbolic sum of 1 $ for a 6 month lease of the property at 2138 Deslonde Street, problemetizes the logic of value, social-economy, governmental ownership versus private ownership as well as looking at the role and value of the citizen in relation to their homestead and sense of belonging. The displaced family lost the ownership of the property with their house and having been forced to move into Fema camps in other states, effectively refugee camps for displaced populations victimized by natural disaster due to climate change or hand made disaster as in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina due to the collapse of the flood prevention system built by the Army core: the levy’s broke.
The property became available for development and sale after my 6 month lease, speculating in increasing its value over time.The pink ribbon outline of the property and former home acts as a living memorial for the family in tandem with commentary on the erosion of social value systems .
Capitalism in the Public Realm 