Architecture-artist duo Hugo Moline & Heidi Axelsen and NSW Architects Registrar Timothy Horton will converse in a unique event in Sydney on Wednesday, September 16.

Being held at the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation in Sydney from 6pm, the conversation,  curated by Penny Craswell, features special guest panellists:

  • Timothy Horton, Registrar, NSW Architects Registration Board
  • Hugo Moline & Heidi Axelsen, architecture-artist duo, creators of Owner Occupy
  • (Moderator) TV and radio presenter Fenella Kernebone

The publicity states:

“Shelter is one of the most fundamental requirements of life. But what makes a good home? How can architecture create communities? Can the sharing economy provide a new model for housing? And how do you create a human-centred urban policy?

"Drawing on themes of shelter, ownership and flexibility in Owner Occupy, an installation by Hugo Moline and Heidi Axelsen for Fugitive Structures 2015, this forum will focus on how shelter, in all its variety, relates to society and addresses fundamental human concerns.”

Information

  • Shelter Hacks is free, but space is limited so secure your spot by emailing [email protected] or calling 02 9331 1112.
  • 6pm for a 6:30pm start.
  • Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, 16–20 Goodhope St, Paddington NSW

Owner Occupy by Hugo Moline and Heidi Axelsen

Owner Occupy, commissioned by SCAF, seeks to create a timely discussion around architecture’s role in housing affordability, and the real estate market’s control of land ownership. 

In their artist statement, Heidi Axelsen and Hugo Moline describe a new state of terra nullius, 'the legal fiction on which all of Sydney’s property ownership is based. The project explores the possibility that terra nullius could be declared again, as a new and permanent state: terra nullius ad infinitum'.

"In this brave new world, the answer to housing affordability is to wipe the slate clean and start again." says Sam Spurr in the exhibition catalogue essay.

The ‘dwelling machines’ created for Owner Occupy allow visitors to stake their own space in the gallery, however they are only entitled to this space while their structure is occupied.

Heidi Axelsen and Hugo Moline work across architecture, installation, social process art and situated public art. They make site-specific devices, discursive machines and social infrastructures. 

The form their work takes depends on its context, and has so far included: personalised vehicles, adaptable shelters, handmade maps, soluble animals, edible cities, a story-collecting tea cart and a galvanised-steel park shelter that can predict the weather. These devices actively engage people to question, understand and act upon the built and political structures which frame our lives.