"Not Sheep": New Urban Enclosures and Commons

Not Sheep writes:

"Not Sheep"

New Urban Enclosures and Commons

Vancouver, May 13–20, 2006

Opening Friday, May 12, 8pm

ARTSPEAK

233 Carrall Street

Vancouver, BC

Canada V6B 2J2

Not Sheep: New Urban Enclosures and Commons gathers a varied set of examples and speculations on new urban enclosures and commons from more than 30 international artists, writers, architects and theorists. The title of the project takes its name from the wooly emblem of the historical enclosure of common land that began in 16th century England as peasants were driven from arable farming land to make room for sheep-walks. But rather than being a mythical moment in capitalism, the enclosing of commons is a process that is in full force today, and visible in the changing shape of cities globally.

Not Sheep looks at the ways that city territories are becoming increasingly closed off and common goods and spaces enclosed, privatized or gated off. From the privatization of Dresden’s public housing stock to pay the city’s debts, the eviction of community gardeners to make warehouse space in Los Angeles, to more subtle shifts in the production of public space, the process of enclosure is a strategy that is remaking urban experience today. Yet examples of “commoning”, the making of common spaces and resources, are also visible: Caracas turning urban brown space into sites of urban agriculture, squatting actions such as Woodsquat in Vancouver and the Pope Squat in Toronto challenging an ownership model that closes off housing space, and the opening of wireless LAN systems such as Bristol Wireless.These intertwined processes of enclosing and commoning have been investigated, initiated and intervened by artists from cities as varied as Gdansk, Brussels, New York, Vancouver, Vienna, Bucharest, Sao Paulo and Rotterdam. Not Sheep is a catalogue of urban projects and writing that examines both new and old forms of urban enclosures and urban commons. Each contribution to the project will be emailed and printed out for exhibition, effectively pointing to digital communication as another possibility for enclosures and commons.



Marian Penner Bancroft, Judith Barry, Jochen Becker, Ron Benner, Bik Van der Pol, Nicholas Blomley, Claudia Bosse, Clint Burnham, Mariana Celac, Vitor Cesar, Steve Collis, Oliver Croy, Calin Dan, Doménec, Roger Farr, Marina Grzinic, Mona Hahn, Jamelie Hassan, Antonia Hirsch, Ashley Hunt, Fiona Jeffries, Susan Kelly & Stephen Morton, Iosif Kiraly, Klub Zwei (Simone Bader/Jo Schmeiser), Martin Krenn, Lin + Lam, Ralo Mayer, Vlad Nanca, Mark Nowak, PAUHOF (Michael Hofstätter/ Wolfgang Pauzenberger), Lisl Ponger, Elspeth Pratt, Geraldine Pratt, Oliver Ressler, Stefan Römer, Klaus Ronneberger, Jayce Salloum, Birgit Schlieps, Tim Sharp, Gregory Sholette, Neil Smith, Sophie Thorsen, Milica Topalovic, Transição Listrada, Aaron Vidaver, Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss, Agnieszka Wolodzko, Michael Zinganel and others



This project has been organized by Urban Subjects (US): Sabine Bitter, Jeff Derksen, Helmut Weber

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