Kvadratni meter
The Memorial to the Housing Crisis
The Memorial to the Housing Crisis (2021) was erected by a collective of female artists from Ljubljana as a reminder of worsening housing conditions in their home town and all throughout the world. They installed their four-metre-tall sculpture with six empty one-cubic-metre rooms in front of the Slovene Ethnographic Museum, where it remained for two months.
Kvadratni meter, The Memorial to the Housing Crisis, 2021. Courtesy of the artist.
Foto: Nejc Trampuž. Courtesy of the artist.
The key component of The Memorial to the Housing Crisis is a performance in which each of the four artists lives in her own cubic space within the sculpture. Because the spaces are only one cubic metre in size, the artists aren’t able to do anything else besides simply existing. The sculpture is made out of a wooden structure, which they have built with the help of expert builders and carpenters. By imitating a concrete block of flats, the goal of the project is to evoke socialist housing projects which brought a large number of affordable, high-quality apartments to the masses in the previous century. Affordable apartments in Ljubljana are now a distant memory to most and a very abstract concept to younger generations. The Memorial and the performance are a reminder of the ongoing housing crisis and the anxiety and existential problems stemming from the impossibility of obtaining a suitable place to live.
The project was financed with funds from Mreža za prostor’s grant via the Institute for the Studies of Housing and Space.
The project was financed with funds from Mreža za prostor’s grant via the Institute for the Studies of Housing and Space.
Kvadratni meter, The Memorial to the Housing Crisis, 2021.
Foto: Juš Premrov. Courtesy of the artist.
Kvadratni meter is a collective of four female artists from Ljubljana that was established in 2019. Their projects consist of performances, installations, sculptures and public space interventions. In 2021, the collective exhibited their work in the Alkatraz Gallery and the Cirkulacija 2 Gallery in Ljubljana. Their latest and most resounding project, the Memorial to the Housing Crisis, was exhibited in the square in front of the museums on Metelkova Street. Their works deal with topics of gentrification, unavailability of housing spaces and poor living conditions on a local and global scale.
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Based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, each issue is dedicated to a relevant topic in art and life. Founded to promote emerging artists, its goal is to initiate a dialogue, inspire collaborations, and challenge set views.