The Housing Crisis and artists’ responses to it.
This research began as a personal research project looking for solutions to my own housing needs. I am interested in the tension between top down and bottom up solutions, what I’ve termed in my notes as municipal vs autonomous whilst accepting that many housing solutions and schemes don’t fit neatly into one category or the other and will borrow elements from each. I am additionally interested in the ways artists have responded in their work to the housing crisis as both a theme and an existent pressure upon their practices.
I began by developing a small number of research questions;
For the purposes of organising my research I have outlined four areas to categorise trends. Many of the examples cited will lend themselves to more than one category.
1. State or Municipal led housing solutions - top down
2. 'Autonomous' housing solutions - bottom up
a. Small self-build - 'giving something up'
b. normal size self-build & financial instruments
3. Housing for artists?
4. Artists’ responses to the housing crisis
1. State or municipal led housing solutions
This category includes examples where a council has undertaken to construct its own housing solutions despite the limitations placed on local councils by central government.
This includes Goldsmith Street in Norwich for which Norwich council set up its own housebuilding company to build social housing [1] although as pointed out by Acorn [2] the continued existence of right to buy laws mean that several properties have since moved into private ownership.
Similar developments include Burnholme View in York [3] Derive in Salford [4] And the redevelopment of the Colville estate in Hackney [5] although an article by Architects for Social Housing published in Vice magazine [6] casts doubt on the numbers of properties available in Hackney and their affordability, and suggests in the Hackney case that the rhetoric around social housing and affordability can be used dishonestly by councils and developers.
This also includes suggestions put forward by Nick Bano who posits that there is not a housing supply issue in the UK but one of artificial scarcity created by landlords [6] suggesting the use of municipalisation of property to bring about the end of landlordism.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/jul/16/norwich-goldsmith-street-social-housing-green-design
[2] https://www.instagram.com/p/C4Xnm2jsyEm/?img_index=1
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/oct/04/everest-zero-carbon-inside-yorks-green-home-revolution
[4] https://www.derivesalford.co.uk/
[5] https://www.vice.com/en/article/xwbmzq/hackney-council-will-demolish-an-entire-estate-to-build-flats-but-add-no-new-social-housing
[6] https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-landlords-surprisingly-simple-solution-to-uk-housing-crisis
2. 'Autonomous housing solutions
a. Small self-build (giving something up)
This includes a range of self-build homes, tiny homes [7], and gentle densification initiatives [8] led by tenants and groups of tenants. In many cases there is a sense of making a sacrifice to off-set the high financial cost of participating in the regular housing market whether this is a sacrifice of space (tiny homes) or giving up garden space in the case of gentle densification.
This approach is valid although there could be an argument that the sacrifices made in order to be housed should not have to be made by the tenants, and that accepting these is accepting framing like that put forward by Huw Pill from the Bank of England that people need to accept that they are 'poorer' [9] and as such need to willing to accept less than previous generations in terms of spending power and by extension housing provision.
[7] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-63304989
[8] https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/now-in-my-back-yard-the-group-thats-building-rear-garden-micro-homes
[9] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/apr/25/britons-need-to-accept-theyre-poorer-says-bank-of-england-economist
b. normal size self-builds, collective self-builds, and the financial instruments that enable it
This includes the Danish Andelboliger system [10] which gives tenants first refusal to collectively buy an apartment block should the landlord wish to sell up and is like initiatives championed by Corbyn/McDonnell [11] and Richard Wolff [12] to allow workers in a firm to buy-out their firm and establish it as a co-op.
The German Mietshauser Syndikat which seeks to bring property under the control of its co-operative syndicates with a model that prevents re-privatisation and as such remove property permanently from market circulation. [13]
Similar approaches include those undertaken by Community Land Trusts (CLTs) such as Citizens House in Lewisham [14] and Mutual Home Ownership Schemes (MHOS) pioneered in the UK by LiLAC in Leeds [15], and Fairhold an in-development concept by Open Systems Lab [16] described as a creative commons licence for land and property.
[10] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/23/cooperative-housing-peace-of-mind-denmark-tenants-landlords
[11] https://labourlist.org/2017/05/labours-manifesto-will-help-deliver-a-truly-co-operative-economy/
[12] https://www.democracyatwork.info/about_co_ops
[13] https://tribunemag.co.uk/2022/07/germany-mietshauser-syndikat-property-housing
[14] https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/apr/20/citizens-house-real-affordable-housing-london-community-property?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
[15] https://www.lilac.coop/resources/
[16] https://www.opensystemslab.io/projects
3. Housing for Artists?
This includes schemes that provide housing for artists at a discount for below market rent.
A House for Artists in Barking [17] which offers artists (selected by application) the opportunity to rent an apartment at 65% of the market rate in exchange for the artists committing time each week to work on a socially engaged project locally.
West End Lofts Brooklyn [18] offers a two-tier pricing structure with artists and entrepreneurs paying less than non artists and entrepreneurs. The reason given for this is that artists being priced out of the area otherwise.
Both have a lack of universalism and a two-tier pricing structure which could separate artists from non-artists socially and geographically. It also ignores that for a successful (arts) ecology there also needs to be other industries locally with staff who also need to be housed. [19]
[17] https://architecturetoday.co.uk/a-house-for-artists-apparata-barking/
[18] https://escapebrooklyn.com/affordable-artist-housing-beacon-ny-west-end-lofts/
[19] https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2016/sep/16/helping-artists-not-stop-london-hollowed-out-housing-crisis
4. Artists responses to housing and the housing crisis
Laura Yuile - Asset Arrest podcast ASSET ARREST (2015 - ongoing) - Laura Yuile
Nick Smith – We were both wrong. The Birley Nick Smith - We Were Both Wrong (nrtsmith.com)
East St Arts - Housing: Can artists offer a different perspective? Exhibition https://www.instagram.com/p/C40Gdxjhbjm/
Spicebag – Garda attending an eviction - Artist behind Garda eviction image believes ‘people are missing the point’ – The Irish Times
Ash Hardman – The Great British Housing Crisis exhibition https://www.instagram.com/p/C4QheM9oq_T/?img_index=1
Julia Heslop – Protohome https://www.juliaheslop.com/work/protohome
Jeremy Deller - London flag https://www.instagram.com/p/CuZhWHoIeA2/
Artistlivework.net – network, research map and summary report https://artistlivework.net/
Acme artists housing - https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/supporting-artists-acmes-first-decade-1972-1982/
Jeanne van Heeswijk – The blue house https://www.jeanneworks.net/projects/the_blue_house/
Martha Rosler – if you lived here https://www.martharosler.net/if-you-lived-here-carousel
Clifford Harper – Visions https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/1p6yux/visions_series_of_posters_by_anarchist_artist/
Augustine O’Donughue & Conor McCabe – doormats https://www.instagram.com/p/C7TppNFMJYb/?img_index=2
Reading list
Andrew Bibby - These Houses are ours https://www.amazon.co.uk/These-Houses-Are-Ours-community-led/dp/1913625087
Colin Ward – Housing: An Anarchist Approach & Talking Houses: Ten Lectures https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7670367-housing-an-anarchist-approach?ref=nav_sb_ss_2_15
El Lissitsky – Russia, an Architecture for world revolution https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/431208.Russia?ref=nav_sb_ss_2_9
John FC Turner - Housing by People: Towards Autonomy in Building Environments https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1742954
Nick Bano - Against Landlords:How to Solve the Housing Crisis https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2956-against-landlords
Jonathan Orlek - Artist-Led Housing: Histories, Residencies, Spaces https://www.instagram.com/p/C4qXTYGKJa2/