A photograph of Donna Allfrey's dog Niko, sitting on the front porch of her house on Oxford Terrace. The photographer comments, "Niko found Doug Sexton, Allfrey's neighbour, after the 22 February 2011 earthquake. Sexton had a heart attack during the earthquake and could not leave his damaged house".
A photograph of Siobhan Murphy's house at 436 Oxford Terrace. The photograph was taken from the empty lot next door. The front of the house has been covered with plastic sheeting. Wire fencing has been placed around the outside of the property as a cordon.
A photograph of Robin Duff standing on the porch of his house at 386 Oxford Terrace. There is a sign in the window to his left depicting a bulldozer with a line through it. The photographer comments, "Avon Loop resident Donna Allfrey made this sign for Duff".
A photograph of Donna Allfrey, her husband Lex, and their two dogs, Niko and Zeus, sitting on the front steps of their house on Oxford Terrace. A green sticker on the door behind them indicates that the house has been inspected and is safe to enter.
A photograph of Robin Duff standing on the porch of his house at 386 Oxford Terrace. There is a sign in the window to his left depicting a bulldozer with a line through it. The photographer comments, "Avon Loop resident Donna Allfrey made this sign for Duff".
A photograph of the house at 402 Oxford Terrace. The grass has been mowed, but the dead grass has not been removed. A red sticker on the door indicates that the house in unsafe to enter. In the foreground, the letterbox is sitting on an angle.
A photograph of the letterbox and a section of the fence around Donna Allfrey's property at 406 Oxford Terrace. The house number is missing from the letterbox and a picket is missing from the fence. The photographer comments, "The mail is no longer being delivered".
A video of an interview with Lianne Dalziel about her decision to run for the mayoralty of Christchurch. Dalziel talks about resigning as a member of parliament, creating a sounding board for community, businesses, and the political spectrum at the Christchurch City Council, and the importance of uniting the Council.
A copy of the transcript of Ps Sam Harvey's interview for the Church in the Quakes Project. The interview was conducted by Melissa Parsons on 3 October 2012. Harvey is the Pastor at the Beach Campus of Grace Vineyard Church.
A copy of the transcript of Rev'd Peter Collier's interview for the Church in the Quakes Project. The interview was conducted by Melissa Parsons on 7 December 2012. Collier is the Priest Assistant at St John's Church in Latimer Square.
Part two of a video recording of Ps John Alpe's interview for the Church in the Quakes Project. The interview was conducted by Melissa Parsons on 5 December 2012. John Alpe is the Senior Pastor of St Albans Baptist Church.
An audio recording of Rev Gerard Jacobs's interview for the Church in the Quakes Project. The interview was conducted by Melissa Parsons on 12 September 2012. Rev Gerard Jacobs is the Parish priest at St Peter's in Upper Riccarton and St Luke's in Yaldhurst.
A photograph of the former site of a house at 466 Oxford Terrace. The house was demolished after the land was zoned Red. Grass has begun to grow on the site. The house number has been spray-painted on the footpath in front.
A photograph of the former site of a house at 456 Oxford Terrace. The house was demolished after the land was zoned Red. In the middle of the site is a walnut tree. Wire fencing has been placed across the front as a cordon.
A transcript of Rev Gerard Jacobs's interview for the Church in the Quakes Project. The interview was conducted by Melissa Parsons on 12 September 2012. Rev Gerard Jacobs is the Parish priest at St Peter's in Upper Riccarton and St Luke's in Yaldhurst.
Part one of a video recording of Ps John Alpe's interview for the Church in the Quakes Project. The interview was conducted by Melissa Parsons on 5 December 2012. John Alpe is the Senior Pastor of St Albans Baptist Church.
A photograph of Robin Duff standing on the porch of his house at 386 Oxford Terrace. There is a sign in the window to his left depicting a bulldozer with a line through it. The photographer comments, "Avon Loop resident Donna Allfrey made this sign for Duff".
A photograph of Doug Sexton holding a memento of his house at 378 Oxford Terrace. The memento was created by artist Sarah Brown for the Shared Lines Sendai/Christchurch Art Exchange. Brown used found objects from Doug Sexton's house to create this artwork in a tobacco tin.
A photograph of a wire fence at the border of 406 Oxford Terrace. 406 Oxford Terrace is the former site of Donna Allfrey's house which was demolished after her land was zoned Red. In front of the fence, gravel has been spread over the ground.
In recent work on commons and commoning, scholars have argued that we might delink the practice of commoning from property ownership, while paying attention to modes of governance that enable long-term commons to emerge and be sustained. Yet commoning can also occur as a temporary practice, in between and around other forms of use. In this article we reflect on the transitional commoning practices and projects enabled by the Christchurch post-earthquake organisation Life in Vacant Spaces, which emerged to connect and mediate between landowners of vacant inner city demolition sites and temporary creative or entrepreneurial users. While these commons are often framed as transitional or temporary, we argue they have ongoing reverberations changing how people and local government in Christchurch approach common use. Using the cases of the physical space of the Victoria Street site “The Commons” and the virtual space of the Life in Vacant Spaces website, we show how temporary commoning projects can create and sustain the conditions of possibility required for nurturing commoner subjectivities. Thus despite their impermanence, temporary commoning projects provide a useful counter to more dominant forms of urban development and planning premised on property ownership and “permanent” timeframes, in that just as the physical space of the city being opened to commoning possibilities, so too are the expectations and dispositions of the city’s inhabitants, planners, and developers.
A photograph of the former site of a house at 58 Bangor Street. The house was demolished after the land was zoned Red. The grass has begun to grow over the site. The house behind has also been demolished, so that Oxford Terrace is now visible in the distance.
Part three of an audio recording of Ps Sam Harvey's interview for the Church in the Quakes Project. The interview was conducted by Melissa Parsons on 14 September 2012. Harvey is the Pastor at the Beach Campus of Grace Vineyard Church.
A video of an interview with John Laurenson, Principal at Shirley Boys' High School, about the Government announcement of a possible merger of Shirley Boys' and Christchurch Boys' High Schools. Laurenson explains that the government has retracted this statement and that Shirley Boys' will be rebuilt. He also talks about how the announcement has upset the Shirley community.
A photograph of a bow made out of curtains pinned to Siobhan Murphy's house at 436 Oxford Terrace. In the background, the house has been covered in plastic sheeting. The photographer comments, "The bow is a memorial to Murphy's living room and her life in the house".
A photograph of a room in Donna Allfrey's house at 406 Oxford Terrace. The fireplace has been removed and boarded up with gib board. The mantelpiece has been propped in front of the gib board, and two couches have been placed on their sides next to it.
A photograph of the house number spray-painted on the footpath in front of the Locke family's property at 392 Oxford Terrace. The photographer comments, "The numbers were spray-painted in front of all the properties in the Avon Loop in order to keep track of the property number after the mailboxes were lost or removed".
Photograph captioned by Fairfax, "Children in Diamond Harbour and Purau who decided to try and cheer up all the sick and elderly in the community after the quake by taking them bunches of daffodils. From left are Charmaine Cameron, Alex Cameron, Liam Schmidlin-Wilson, Ruby Gilligan, Ellie Rice, Sofia Rand, Zac Cottrell-Vincent (rear), Dorothy Schmidlin-Wilson, Sky Dehne and James Rice".
A copy of the transcript of Rev'd Sam Knight's interview for the Church in the Quakes Project. The interview was conducted by Melissa Parsons of 5 October 2012. Knight was the Youth and Men's Pastor at Sumner/Redcliffs and is now the Curate at St Barnabas.
Part one of an audio recording of Ps Sam Harvey's interview for the Church in the Quakes Project. The interview was conducted by Melissa Parsons on 14 August 2012. Harvey is the Pastor at the Beach Campus of Grace Vineyard Church.
Part two of an audio recording of Ps Sam Harvey's interview for the Church in the Quakes Project. The interview was conducted by Melissa Parsons on 14 September 2012. Harvey is the Pastor at the Beach Campus of Grace Vineyard Church.