If You Lived Here… (2021)

Martha Rosler’s project If You Lived Here… was first staged in New York in 1989. Over three consecutive exhibitions and four public forums it focused on homelessness and housing struggles, making incisive interventions into early debates on gentrification and urban regeneration. In the 30 years since the original project, the If You Lived Here… archive has continued to grow and has been displayed in multiple variations across the world.

It was re-presented and reimagined as part of the exhibition Life Support, Forms of Care in Art and Activism (2021). Once again, it combined archival and documentary materials with a video lounge and artworks.

Those materials reprised from the 1989 exhibitions include documentation from Peter Dunn and Loraine Leeson’s pioneering Docklands Community Poster Project (1981-1991), Jerry Pagane’s woodcut Vacant Village (1986) and Seth Tobocman’s Spatial Deconcentration (1989).

New additions focused on the context in Scotland, including Joey Simons and Keira McLean’s Glasgow Housing Struggles Timeline (2021), Shona Macnaughton’s Progressive (2017), an exploration of bodily and urban regeneration in the city’s East End, and a selection of Franki Raffles’photography which focus on housing and home life, curated by Rachel Boyd and Weitian Liu. Raffles was a feminist social documentary photographer based in Edinburgh whose images of women address work, health, housing and education, and resulted from close collaboration with activist groups in Scotland.

The Video Lounge included films by Downtown Community Television Center, Tony Freeth, Winnie Herbstein, Janet Koenig, ManSee Kong, Leeds Animation Workshop and Sasha Wortzel, among others.

Artist and theorist Martha Rosler’s work is focused on everyday life, the politics of class and public space. Paying particular attention to women’s experience, her artworks and published writings utilise a range of strategies to address urgent topics including inequality, war and surveillance.