CONDITIONS OF LIVING
Anthony Luvera
Dulwich Road Studio Press
English
Hardcover
First edition
102 pages
238 x 297 mm
2025
ISBN 9781916373310
Conditions of Living examines the rise of economic segregation in recent housing developments, a phenomenon commonly known as ‘poor doors’. This socially engaged artwork by Anthony Luvera has been created in collaboration with a community forum of local residents living in Tower Hamlets and draws upon extensive research into the social, political, and economic evolution of market-driven ‘affordable’ housing provision, and the state of social housing today.
Brought together from almost 1,000 households in eight developments, participants in the Conditions of Living Community Forum have a range of housing tenure backgrounds, from social and affordable rental accommodation to shared and sole ownership. Using photography, sound recordings, and discussion-based activities facilitated to enable participants to share their personal experiences of living in these developments, Luvera worked with the Community Forum to consider how economic segregation in housing operates, and how restrictions expand outward from separate entrances to access to amenities, resources, and public space. Through group workshops and individual meetings, participants were invited to explore issues relating to why some buildings have segregated entrances, and how architecture and planning affect access to key social rights such as healthcare, culture, the environment, education, and transport.
Segregation in housing developments can occur in a variety of ways, through physical doors leading to different parts of the building; separate floors assigned to non-market rate flats or the so-called affordable housing units; distinct internal segments of the same building usually with isolated lifts; entire blocks within a wider complex; or specific amenities that are restricted to certain residents based on the type of unit they live in. Local authorities allow property developers to design ‘poor doors’ into their housing developments and consequently embed segregation therein. London is one of the world’s last major cities yet to ban ‘poor doors’ despite years of political proclamations against this segregationist practice.
The built environment plays a powerful role in determining the ways people live together and is at the core of the experience of housing. Architecture and planning can be used to enforce social inequalities through the privileging of market forces, resulting in discrimination and segregation. Conditions of Living brings together research and the experiences of those living in the buildings to construct an image of this much discussed, yet often invisible phenomenon. Conditions of Living invites us to reflect on these convoluted systems and contemplate alternative possibilities for housing conditions, communal living, and collective action.(source: https://www.luvera.com/project/conditions-of-living/#:~:text=Conditions%20of%20Living%20examines%20the,known%20as%20’poor%20doors’.)
About the Artist
Anthony Luvera is an Australian socially engaged artist, writer, and educator based in London. The long-term collaborative work he creates with individuals and communities has been exhibited widely in galleries, public spaces, and festivals, including the UK House of Commons, Tate Liverpool, The Gallery at Foyles, the British Museum, London Underground’s Art on the Underground, National Portrait Gallery London, Four Corners, Belfast Exposed Photography, Australian Centre for Photography, PhotoIreland, Malmö Fotobiennal, Goa International Photography Festival, Les Rencontres D’Arles Photographie, Oslo Negative, and Landskrona Foto Festival. His writing has appeared in a range of publications including Trigger, Photography and Culture, Visual Studies, Photoworks, Source, and Photographies.
luvera.com
(source: https://www.luvera.com/biography/)
About the Publisher
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