Occupation

Fig. 01 The infrastructure of domestic solidarity, Het Nieuwe Instituut on the squatting as a spatial practice.

The project undertakes the process of injecting a series of small scale, formal and informal objects within the site. This act makes use of informal objects to delineate an occupation of a site through Heidegger’s understanding of an object’s ability to “become something of explicit awareness”.

The objects take precedent from the Aboriginal tent embassy, which for decades has occupied the lawns of old parliament house as a political re-occupation of indigenous land and the subsequent calls for land-rights for First Nation’s People. Also taking precedent from the practice of squatting through the appropriation of space, which overtime has become to represent a radical new approach to urban development.

Fig. 02 The additions of architecture added overtime on an abandoned house occupied by squatters, Het Nieuwe Instituut on the squatting as a spatial practice.

Fig. 03 Architecture of Appropriation. On Squatting as Spatial Practice Exhibition. The addition of a stair to the main building bypasses the entrace to create an urban addition.

Fig. 04 A squatting manual with the slogan ‘Save a building, occupy a building’ by Woningburo de Kraker, May 1969. Collection: International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam.

Fig. 05 White Houses Plan pamphlet by Provo movement, April 1966. Collection: International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam.

Fig. 06 The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is a permenent protest occupation site located on the front lawn of Old Parliament House. First established in 1972 as a protest against the McMahon government’s approach to Indigenous Australian land rights. The embassy has gained legal status of “adverse posession” through its prolonged political occupation.

Fig. 07 On 26 January 1972 four Indigenous men set up a beach umbrella on the lawns opposite Parliament House in Canberra. Describing the umbrella as the Aboriginal Embassy, the men were protesting the McMahon government’s approach to Indigenous land rights.

Fig. 08 Objects on the site take precedent from these informal occupations of site to provide both a political and social understanding of occupation outside of colonial law.