The Housing Question

The recent development in Boyle Heights has
provoked heated debates, a series of actions and
a large number of public statements and news
coverage on the role of art institutions as a
generator of gentrification. The positions in the
debates went from "art institutions should leave
the neighborhood altogether", and the demand to
"take a side", to a view of the development as
something normal in the history of the
neighborhood that has "always changed".
But how exactly would one describe and understand
the relation of art and gentrification? What is
the role of the artist as producer, and as
citizen? How have artists worked in the past with
this challenge and how did they position
themselves? What are complimentary approaches and
assessments to describe and understand the
current situation while grasping the complexities
of the diverse agents in it? What is, for
example, the history of Boyle Heights and how
does its reading help us to deal with the current
situation?
What does it mean to rent, to own, to have
property? How do we discuss notions of use value
and exchange value in this context? Can we
imagine housing to be decommodified; a human
right, a common? Is there a chance to break the
cycle in which the gentrified are meant to become
the gentrifiers?
The course is structured as a 2 semester course.
In fall, it will be organized as a collective
inquiry on the housing question in relation to
the arts. It will not solely look at the
situation of Boyle Heights, but take Boyle
Heights as an exemplary case study through which
we can read a complex of problems, as well as its
histories, and possible alternative futures. The
spring semester the course will be continued as a
project /production class. These classes can be
taken in sequence or individually.