Undoing Property

2009–2013

Undoing Property? examines complex relationships of ownership that exist inside art, culture, political economy, immaterial production, and the public realm today. In its pages artists and writers address aspects of computing, curating, economy, ecology, gentrification, music, publishing, piracy, and much more.

Property shapes all social relations. Its invisible lines force separations and create power relations felt through the unequal distribution of what otherwise is collectively produced value. Over the last few years the precise question of what should be privately owned and publicly shared in society has animated intense political struggles and social movements around the world.

In this shadow the publication’s critical texts, interviews and artistic interventions offer models of practice and interrogate diverse sites, from the body, to the courtroom, to the server, to the museum. The book asks why propertisation itself has changed so fundamentally over the last few decades and what might be done to challenge this.

The book is a result of a four-year collaboration between London-based artist Marysia Lewandowska and New York-based curator Laurel Ptak. It is produced by Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm, Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht, and The Showroom and published by Sternberg Press. It was launched in June 2013 at The Showroom with presentations and discussions by some of the book's contributors.