ASSET ARREST is a project that is published as a podcast series. ASSET ARREST approaches the spaces of financialised housing through a process of performing as a potential buyer or renter. For each episode, I have invited a guest to attend a viewing of a different residential property with me. Guests have included artists, architects, estate agents, activists, academics, and individuals who live in a certain area and have an interest in a development that is affecting them. In recording a conversation with my guest before and after each viewing, I construct and publish an image of the exclusive, private space that is communicated through language rather than the glamorous and idealised photography and CGI imagery that typically communicates these spaces to us as we navigate the city.
Guests have included Alberto Duman, Tatjana Schneider, Semâ Bekirović, Dwellbeing, Cassie Thornton, Wing Shing Tang, and Oli Mould.
To listen to ASSET ARREST please go here, or find it on your preferred podcast platform.
Another part of ASSET ARREST is the ‘tours’ that I run where members of the public can sign up to attend a viewing of a property of their choice with me. I make the process of entering these spaces less intimidating for my guests who in turn can experience the hidden reality of these ‘luxury’ spaces that populate the city. I handle all communications with the developer or agent and lead the conversation during the viewing. Again, I view this as an act of ungating. This project functions to intervene in these exclusive spaces through performance. I have viewed purpose-built student housing, luxury new developments, multi-million-pound mansions, serviced apartments and gated communities for expats; each form of housing requiring me to play a different role.
With planners, developers and investors often utilising culture as a tool towards increasing property values (which I will elaborate on in my introduction and throughout each chapter), ASSET ARREST enables me – an artist - to claim something back from them; to use their spaces towards different ends. I intend ASSET ARREST to be an ongoing project, a long-term commitment that will enable me to map out and interrogate the exclusionary spaces of financialised housing in whichever cities I pass through for work or leisure.
Please get in touch if you would like to view any properties!
