72 Hours: Project Description
Shadow forms flicker through the windows of an abandoned home.
In one window, a family gathers around the dinner table. In another, a group of children play games. The home is empty – its residents long since moved out – but over the course of an evening, it is lit up from within by shadow projections. From the street, passersby witness unfolding events that reveal the life of the building’s former residents.
Then, sinister events start to occur. A constable arrives, delivering a 72-hour eviction notice. Someone hurls a pile of bank documents into the air. A woman watches as a moving crew forcibly evicts her from her home.
72 Hours is an ongoing series of site-specific interventions that combines video projection with direct action to address the lived experience of foreclosure.
Collaborating with individuals who have lost their homes or who are fighting to remain in their homes, 72 Hours seeks to find new forms for critically engaged artistic practice. Working closely with Boston-area tenants' rights group City Life/Vida Urbana, the participants and collaborators in 72 Hours aim to make public, visible, and felt the struggles of those undergoing foreclosure.
By temporarily occupying apartment buildings, foreclosed houses, or vacant bank-owned properties and transforming them into sites for multimedia projection, 72 Hours makes visible the absences and traces left behind when residents are evicted from their homes.
Most recently, 72 Hours was installed in a series of foreclosed units in Four Corners, Dorchester, as part of a protest against foreclosure. Previously, projections were installed in the home of the Velasquez family in Dedham, as part of a rally organized by City Life to fight the family's eviction. Following the protest, Deutsche Bank began negotiations with a non-profit bank to sell the home at current market value.
An expanded description of the project, along with participants' stories and testimonials, is available in the March issue of Groundswell Journal. An audiovisual slideshow on the Four Corners occupation and intervention can be seen on the New York Times website.
Credits:
John Hulsey and Ilaria Minio Paluello with Jacob Bison, Andrew Kirtley, Frances Louis, Chris Louis, Dorett Martin, Ken Tilton, Theresa, Wislande; the members of City Life/Vida Urbana and the Bank Tenants Association.