Women have played a vital role in housing struggles across the globe. Presented as part of the Life Support exhibition in partnership with Living Rent, this online workshop explored housing activism as part of feminist struggle, with a focus on creative organising and union-building.
Six invited speakers contributed short presentations on their experiences and research followed by collective feedback and more focused small group discussions. Our speakers included Kashfi Ahmed (Ubuntu Women Shelter), Elizabeth Blaney (Union de Vecinos), Meg Bishop (Living Rent and The University of Edinburgh), Kirsteen Paton (The University of Glasgow), Loa Pour Mirza (Ubuntu Women Shelter), Adebusola Ramsay (artist), Martha Rosler (artist and theorist) and Emma Saunders (Living Rent).
This open forum formed part of a programme of activities connected to Martha Rosler’s If You Lived Here… (1989 – present) which was re-imagined as part of the Life Support exhibition. Rosler’s project prioritises women’s experiences and highlights the central role that women have long played in housing struggles. The book associated with the original exhibition was dedicated to ‘women around the world who organize their buildings and their blocks and their neighborhoods to secure decent conditions for everyone and to maintain a sense of place’.
Following Rosler’s insistence that housing is a feminist issue, we explored topics including: how to move beyond ‘resilience’ narratives to instead build solidarity and care into organising strategies; the ways in which the housing question intersects with racism, migration and legal status; and the relationship between art, gentrification and housing struggles in the 21st century. The forum brought together a range of perspectives, encouraging connections both locally and internationally to unpack the realities of housing struggles and to inform future priorities.
You can watch six presentations that were part of the event here, presented via the GWL website and YouTube channel: