This work was made specifically for the group exhibition "From Carabanchel to Soho". Ten artists were invited to reflect on the concept of "Gentrification". The exhibition was curated by the urban artist DosJotas and took place in the Madrid art space “la nave imaginable”.
The wall, 2024.
A wall built by means of mailboxes located at the entrances of residential dwellings, the names of the residents written on the doors of the mailboxes were removed.
"The wall" invites us to reflect on the social consequences of so-called "gentrification". This urban process of economic speculation is carried out - among others - by transnational companies and consists of the massive purchase of housing in working-class neighbourhoods of cities. Once the ownership of these properties has been acquired, the original inhabitants are expelled by various violent methods. The homes in these urban areas, once emptied of community life, are then either used for tourism or re-let to social classes with greater purchasing power, or are closed off in the hope of being sold in a future revaluation of the urban areas where they are located.
These gentrified neighbourhoods become areas of expulsion and social exclusion, enclosed by economic walls. They cease to be spaces with their own cultural identity, where community life flows, and are transformed, as anthropologist Marc Augé defined them, into non-places.
Housing understood in this capitalist way - not as a basic right, but only as a commodity for speculation and profit - is framed within the logic of the unhinged neoliberal socio-economic system in which we live.
This text has been automatically translated by the Deepl app. Due to the nuances of automatic translation, there may be slight differences.
"The wall" invites us to reflect on the social consequences of so-called "gentrification". This urban process of economic speculation is carried out - among others - by transnational companies and consists of the massive purchase of housing in working-class neighbourhoods of cities. Once the ownership of these properties has been acquired, the original inhabitants are expelled by various violent methods. The homes in these urban areas, once emptied of community life, are then either used for tourism or re-let to social classes with greater purchasing power, or are closed off in the hope of being sold in a future revaluation of the urban areas where they are located.
These gentrified neighbourhoods become areas of expulsion and social exclusion, enclosed by economic walls. They cease to be spaces with their own cultural identity, where community life flows, and are transformed, as anthropologist Marc Augé defined them, into non-places.
Housing understood in this capitalist way - not as a basic right, but only as a commodity for speculation and profit - is framed within the logic of the unhinged neoliberal socio-economic system in which we live.
This text has been automatically translated by the Deepl app. Due to the nuances of automatic translation, there may be slight differences.