Squatting On Shifting Grounds - Interview

Afterimage, July, 2001 by Marc J. Leger

An Interview with Bruce Barber and Katherine Grant

Within the parameters of "littoral art" and "the art of giving," Halifax, Nova Scotia-based artist, writer and theorist Bruce Barber invited Katherine Grant, a homeless resident of Calgary, Alberta, to become a "Squat(wri)ter" for a temporary exhibition at the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre. On view for eight weeks in the summer of 1999, Squat transformed the gallery space into a resident's living quarters and linked the room to an Internet Web site. Through the Internet link, virtual visitors could engage with the Squatter in a chat room, post questions and comments, or obtain information on housing rights and squat advocacy. The Squat Web site included two texts by Barber on new directions in critical community art practice: "Littoralist Art Practice and Communicative Action" (1996) and "Sentences on Littoral Art" (1998). In these texts, Barber's approach to art production draws from Pierre Bourdieu and Jurgen Habermas in articulating practices of giving and communicative action that are premis ed on "ethical, socially responsive and politically efficacious art?" I interviewed Barber on the subject of the Banff, Alberta exhibition and its continuation abroad in Poland and New Zealand. [1] This interview was carried out by email in the summer of 2000.

MARC J. LEGER: Squat seems to me to be produced in large part through the agency and performance of the person who occupies the gallery space for the duration of the exhibition. The project begins therefore not only with a series of concepts for a critical art intervention but also with a pre-existing situation involving a complex set of social circumstances and individuals. Could you tell me something about how you came to meet the Squat(wri)ter and what she wanted to say about the situation of homelessness and housing in Banff?

BRUCE BARBER: Before I arrived in Banff in the summer of 1999 I had submitted a handbill design for general circulation and publication in the local Calgary street journal and other venues. It stated that the Walter Phillips Art Gallery at the Banff Centre was seeking an itinerant or presently homeless writer to occupy a squat (designed by myself) for a period of eight weeks during the summer to communicate with other writers on the World Wide Web. This advertisement had circulated for at least two weeks prior to my arrival and the gallery personnel had set up some interviews with prospective squatters for me during the week prior to the exhibition opening. I was also taken to Calgary and distributed other handbills to homeless people I met on the street. At one of the Calgary drop-in centers for the homeless we established a time to meet with Katherine Grant whom the coordinators recommended as someone who would both contribute to and benefit from the project. Katherine, a woman in her late forties or early fifties, lived in an old car and traveled regularly between Alberta and British Columbia to maintain contact with her two sons. She had little formal education and recounted a particularly difficult life history, which I did not feel comfortable discussing with her or representing in this context without her express permission. She disclosed that she was receiving disability payments and rejected the idea of receiving payment for her role as a squatter, as this would have jeopardized her social security payments. She did take the opportunity, however, to receive the hospitality of the Banff residency program--food vouchers, the opportunity to sit in on various workshops, access to exercise facilities--to become in effect (without conventional symbolic capital) just like any of the other artists and writers invited to become part of the Banff residency program.

Instead of occupying one of the special architect-designed studio pods provided in the Centre grounds, Katherine was provided with a squat in the gallery. She informed me that she had previously taken one continuing education course in writing (in B.C.) and although she was "always writing" she had not yet had the opportunity to publish any of her work. During her residency in the squat she managed to publish one piece locally and received invitations to publish others. She began work on her life history. She also learned some aspects of videomaking and became a popular member of the Centre community, making friends with everyone she encountered. She personalized the squat space with her stuffed toys and bed quilt. She invited people to sign the walls of the interior of her bedroom, which many did, leaving messages of support and friendship, drawings and poems that were subsequently documented on video.

MJL: Did you do any work on the subject of homelessness and squatting before the Banff project?

BB: Yes, the Walter Phillips Gallery version of Squat was preceded in March 1999 by a non-virtual Squat installed in the so-called Closet Gallery of the Khyber Centre for the arts here in Halifax. I was approached by Michael Fernandes, a Khyber curator and fellow artist, about whether I was interested in using the so-called "Closet Gallery;' and after inspecting the space, which is a regular-sized closet with an ongoing exhibition program, I decided to return the closet to its original condition as a closet, and to instead use the vacant room adjacent for an installation. I placed an advertisement in The Coast, the local and widely distributed free newspaper, with a Squat logo (a squatting gentleman wearing a hat, a cane and eyeglasses on the ground before him) and the following text: "The Khyber Centre for the Arts is seeking a homeless writer to inhabit a squat for a month and to collaborate with Bruce Barber on the production of a Closet Drama for the Ides of March (March 15). Call or visit the Khyber Cent re, Barrington Street, phone, fax, etc."