Further images / Return to 2005
Description: As urban infrastructure is transformed into private domestic space by the homeless population, nondescript areas of the city become marked with personal signification. The makeshift arrangement of shelter using found objects such as cardboard and cloth can be quite extraordinary in appearance and functionality. Remnant and discarded products of the city are given added value as they are transformed into building materials, furnishings and safety devices. Attaching themselves onto walls, under awnings and in alcoves, these constructions extend the original design and functionality of their own use and the city spaces which they occupy. Influenced by the ambiguous body forms seen protruding from material positioned in makeshift arrangements on the brightly coloured streets of Delhi in India, DomestiCITY sought to exaggerate these temporary constructions back in inner city Sydney. Limbs extended awkwardly out of these cardboard box and fabric scenes, the viewer unable to determine the identity or sense of wellbeing of those positioned inside. A man was briefly seen walking along a street in New York, dragging behind him a cardboard box. Did this remnant form contain all of his worldly possessions? Or was it the initial building blocks for a new private in public abode? In DomestiCITY an Action Researcher/Performer replicated this action, endlessly traversing the streets of three Australian cities dragging a cardboard box behind him.