Speculation Desk: Introducing the Shock Value Fellowship

How is land valued in Montreal? What does our cityscape tell us about the monopoly of financial value? Can alternative forms of value be used to imagine land in a different, more meaningful way? 

Using art as a tool for subversion, pedagogy and decision-making, The Shock Value Fellowship highlights and critiques the dominance of financial mechanisms in real estate development and unearths non-financial forms of value with public audiences, leading to the development of a future rent-free housing model. Throughout this process, the theme of “value” is used as a support beam to enact public interventions around the city: whether on the construction site of a future luxury condo mega-project, on vacant lots, or in cyberspace. These interventions attempt to engage a wider public in challenging financialized conceptions of land, speculate on the development of new value frameworks and provide grounds for the de-commodification of land.

Join the discussion by registering for the Zoom meeting. 

Have questions? Send them to info.4@concordia.ca

Speakers

The fellows are alumni from the 2020 edition of Excess and the City, the inaugural seminar of the Speculation Desk (Office of Rules and Norms).

Gabriel Townsend Darriau has a BA in Urban Studies from Concordia, works in community-driven real estate and is pursuing a certificate in real estate studies at UQÀM. He rents a 4 ½ for $815/month on a 635 m2 property worth $ 1,970,100.

Maddy Capozzi holds a BFA in Design from Concordia. She has explored her creativity in settings ranging from a social innovation hub, an arts-based transdisciplinary studio, a reuse center, and a research lab for sustainable urbanism. She rents a 4 ½ for $1260/month on a 185 m2 property worth $ 1,187,300.

Christine White is completing her bachelor’s degree at Concordia University with a major in Intermedia and a minor in Sociology. Combining research with intervention, she uses mobile disruptive architecture to imagine public space that acts to serve the common good rather than corporate interest. She rents a 3 ½ for $900/month on a 1 005,80 m2 property worth $ 2,387, 000.

Thomas Heinrich holds a BFA in Design at Concordia University. Throughout his degree he has worked on various subjects including the modernization of Montreal in the 1960s, the reuse of large infrastructure materials and social/ecological architecture. He currently rents a 6 ½ for $1,550/ month on a 153,30 m2 property worth $844 000.