Events | Unbundling the Housing Crisis

Unbundling the Housing Crisis is an artistic design exhibition conceived by architect Jay Isenberg and his wife, artist and professor Lynda Monick-Isenberg. Inter-disciplinary teams were invited to create thoughtful, creative interventions to re-present the human impacts of a situation that has otherwise characterized by blind greed and cold, cruel facts.

The eight collaborative works feature approaches as varied as their individual members, and the three largest installations are summarized here:

Table of Contents--team led by architect Ralph Nelson--is a twisted game of Monopoly involving banks, bread, explosions, under-the-table dealing, copper, and mold. Real mold. But don't worry, this interactive installation presents a nauseating real estate market in a very sanitary fashion.

PPoD--led by Locus Architecture--offers a pragmatic architectural alternative to the buy-now, pay-later disease found in so much residential development. Watch as a fictional family adds “pods” to their home as they grow, paying as they build. When they've got more house than they need (or can afford), these modules are sold off as necessary.

Ghosts and Shadows—team led by Jay and Lynda, Feyereisen Studios, and Families Moving Forward—is a massive scale model depicting a swath of North Minneapolis 26 blocks wide. Within this area alone, more than 270 houses are vacant, boarded, and condemned. The miniature homes are represented as caskets being lowered into the stark white landscape, leaving behind only the shadows of their stories.

Unbundling the Housing Crisis is on display at the Form+Content Gallery through September 5th.