With respect to the disenfranchised ROMA populations throughout Europe this collaborative project lead by Bruce Barber, working with an architect and anthropologist, provides an opportunity for participants to discuss strategies for the animation of collective spaces in terms of transit spaces, temporary campsites, and squat sites in permanent, physically present buildings in communities. The focus for this project is on providing a portable habitable structure for in transit and traditionally nomadic people such as the ROMA and new ‘nomadic’ groups such as migrant workers following global capital, immigrants and exiled people. Participants consider the building of a space or spaces that will enable sustainable living for individuals or a family. This project will be undertaken through negotiation with on site participants and local agents, non-government organizations and community workers.
Since 1998 Bruce Barber has collaborated with individuals and institutions in Canada, Poland and New Zealand and via the web on the production of several squat installations. Each squat contains a similar set of elements: a bed or couch, table, chair, computer with web access, a webcam, printer, a doorscope, a video projector as well as access to washroom and cooking facilities. In recent squat installations an exquisite corpse novel was produced collaboratively by visitors to the squat and via the web site. With its associated chat room and links the web site also provides opportunities for homeless, itinerant or otherwise disenfranchised individuals to communicate with each other about squats and squatting on the web.
www.novelsquat.com
Bruce Barber
Artist, writer, curator and professor at NSCAD University, Halifax, Canada. MFA degrees from Auckland University NSCAD and a PhD from the European Graduate School. Barber’s artwork has been represented in international biennials, with solo and group exhibitions on four continents. His work is documented in Reading Rooms (1990), and Bruce Barber Work 1970--2008 (2008). Author of Trans/actions: Art, Film and Death (2008), Performance [Performance] & Performers (2007); editor Essays on [Performance] and Cultural Politicization (1983), Conceptual Art: the NSCAD Connection (1992); co-editor, Voices of Fire: Art Rage, Power, and the State (1996).
www.brucebarber.ca
Since 1998 Bruce Barber has collaborated with individuals and institutions in Canada, Poland and New Zealand and via the web on the production of several squat installations. Each squat contains a similar set of elements: a bed or couch, table, chair, computer with web access, a webcam, printer, a doorscope, a video projector as well as access to washroom and cooking facilities. In recent squat installations an exquisite corpse novel was produced collaboratively by visitors to the squat and via the web site. With its associated chat room and links the web site also provides opportunities for homeless, itinerant or otherwise disenfranchised individuals to communicate with each other about squats and squatting on the web.
www.novelsquat.com
Bruce Barber
Artist, writer, curator and professor at NSCAD University, Halifax, Canada. MFA degrees from Auckland University NSCAD and a PhD from the European Graduate School. Barber’s artwork has been represented in international biennials, with solo and group exhibitions on four continents. His work is documented in Reading Rooms (1990), and Bruce Barber Work 1970--2008 (2008). Author of Trans/actions: Art, Film and Death (2008), Performance [Performance] & Performers (2007); editor Essays on [Performance] and Cultural Politicization (1983), Conceptual Art: the NSCAD Connection (1992); co-editor, Voices of Fire: Art Rage, Power, and the State (1996).
www.brucebarber.ca