Wikipedia:WikiProject Squatting/Draft/Squatting and culture

Overview

 * Squatting is the long-term act of repurposing derelict property or land without the permission of the owner. DEFINITION


 * It occurs worldwide and Robert Neuwirth has commented that there were over 1 billion (one in seven) squatters worldwide in 2004. He predicted this would increase to 2 billion by 2030 (one in four), and 3 billion by 2050 (one in three).


 * https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2012/sep/03/criminalising-squatters-hurts-british-music

Artists
Many artists and musicians have taken advantage of the option of living in a way free from paying rent to pursue their emerging careers.

In the UK, original members of The Police, Henry Padovani and Stewart Copeland were both squatting in London in the late 1970s. Joe Strummer's first band was called The 101ers and it was named after 101 Walterton Road in Maida Vale, west London, where the band were squatting at the time. Strummer's next band The Clash recorded Combat Rock at the rehearsal studios at Frestonia. Residents of Frestonia included Heathcote Williams and David Rappaport. Joe Rush and the Mutoid Waste Company started off at the Carbreakers Gallery at Frestonia.

Sade lived with her then boyfriend writer Robert Elms in a squat in Tottenham in north London in the 1980s. Likewise, comedians Harry Enfield, Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse were squatting in Hackney in east London. . Jimmy Cauty lived at Trancentral, a squat in Stockwell, London, described by Melody Maker as "large and rather grotty". Cauty heated the kitchen by burning all the gas hobs on full.


 * to add:
 * Grayson Perry
 * Scritti Politti
 * Boy George
 * Spiral Tribe
 * Back to the Planet
 * Tony Allen (comedian)
 * Exodus Collective
 * Spiral Tribe
 * Iain McIntyre

Alison Goldfrapp lived in a squat off the Old Kent Road in south London.

The Thompson Twins

The Ex (band) are former squatters from Amsterdam.

In the USA, actress Rosario Dawson grew up in a squat on the Lower East Side of New York City. Looking back she recalled it as "an incredible mixture of art and resistance and radicalism and off-the-gridding." Stza and other members of the band Leftöver Crack have lived at C-Squat, also on the Lower East Side. Courtney Love lived for a time at the ABC No Rio squat.

Moby squatted in Connecticut.

Non-fiction

 * Kill City: Lower East Side Squatters 1992–2000 is a book of photographs by Ash Thayer, published in 2015. It records squatters on the Lower East Side in 1990s New York City.


 * The Legacy of Luna is a 2000 book written by Julia Butterfly Hill about her experiences tree sitting in an ancient redwood tree. She occupied the tree in northern California for just over two years as part of a campaign to stop trees being cut down for lumber.


 * No Land! No House! No Vote! is an anthology written by the Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers in the township of Delft in South Africa. The accounts detail the experiences of people who were struggling for housing.


 * John Steinbeck published a series of articles in The San Francisco News under the title of The Harvest Gypsies in 1936. He profiled the poverty of US-based migrant workers.


 * Seth Tobocman

Whilst writing Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World Robert Neuwirth lived in squatted settlements in Brazil, India, Kenya and Turkey. Christian Wolmar co-edited Squatting the real story from a squat in Villa Road, south London in the late 1970s. Authors of individual chapters included Piers Corbyn, Ann Pettitt and Colin Ward.

Fiction

 * A Squatter's Tale is a 1997 novel by the Nigerian author Ike Oguine.


 * The Good Terrorist is a 1985 novel by Doris Lessing about a woman who joins a squatted commune and tries to instigate political action. It was nominated for the Booker Prize.


 * Magnificence is a 1973 play by Howard Brenton exploring 1970s far-left political radicalism, which was restaged in 2016 after not being performed in London for over 40 years.


 * The short story Skinner's Room and the Bridge trilogy by William Gibson were inspired by the Kowloon Walled City. He writes about a future time in which the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge has become a massive shanty town.

Films and television



 * Dark Days is a 2000 documentary film made by Marc Singer about homeless people living in the Freedom Tunnel, a derelict section of the New York City Subway.


 * Dear Mandela is a documentary film which follows three participants in Abahlali baseMjondolo, a shackdwellers movement based in South Africa.


 * In Krakende Welstand (Squatter's Delight) is a 1990 film by Mijke de Jong about squatters in Amsterdam who are faced with eviction.


 * Lefties was a three part BBC documentary series focusing upon leftist politics in the UK in the 1970s. Part one examined Villa Road, a street of squats in Brixton.


 * Miracle in Milan (Miracolo a Milano) is a 1951 film directed by Vittorio De Sica which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes Festival


 * Night Lodgers is a 2007 documentary film about people eking out an existence whilst living at the former Grande Hotel Beira in Mozambique. It is directed by Licínio Azevedo.


 * Squatters was a 2014 direct-to-video film starring Richard Dreyfuss about people squatting in Venice Beach, Los Angeles.


 * Squatter's Rights is a 1946 Disney cartoon. Chip 'n' Dale squat Mickey Mouse's house and Pluto tries to evict them.


 * Suburbia is a 1984 film by Penelope Spheeris about young punks in California who run away from home and start squatting.


 * The Strategy of the Snail is a 1993 Colombian film directed by Sergio Cabrera. It concerns a group of squatters who have lived in a large building, for some time. When the previously absent owner wants to evict them, the squatters decide to delay the process and take as much with them as they can.


 * Two Up, Two Down was a 1979 British television sitcom about a couple moving into a house with squatters and deciding to share it with them.

Theatre

 * Emergency Exit is a two-act play by Manlio Santanelli.

Reports

 * We the Invisible evaluated data from a census of 6,000 households of pavement dwellers in Mumbai.
 * Squatters' Action for Secure Homes