
A photograph of a small wooden hut at the entrance to the Ministry of Justice car parks.
A photograph of a small wooden hut at the entrance to the Ministry of Justice car parks.
A photograph of a small wooden hut at the entrance to the Ministry of Justice car parks.
A photograph of a small wooden hut at the entrance to the Ministry of Justice car parks.
A photograph of the exterior of Smash Palace. Scaffolding and plastic sheeting has been used to create walls around the site.
A photograph of a volunteer using a small digger to clear the former site of Piko Wholefoods.
A photograph of a volunteer laying a foundation for the Life in Vacant Spaces headquarters.
A photograph of community members at a meeting to discuss the Sumner master plan.
A photograph of community members at a meeting to discuss the Sumner master plan.
A photograph of the exterior of Smash Palace. Scaffolding and plastic sheeting has been used to create walls around the site.
A photograph of a small wooden hut at the entrance to the Ministry of Justice car parks.
A photograph of a small wooden hut at the entrance to the Ministry of Justice car parks.
A photograph of plantings along a car park border in Lichfield Street.
A photograph of seating at the temporary bus exchange on Lichfield Street.
A photograph of a turbaned man sitting on top of a pillar at the Songs For Christchurch launch.
A photograph of Mike Hewson's installation 'View from the Studio' in Re:Start Mall.
A photograph of a temporary house in Rawhiti Domain.
A photograph of volunteers working at the Fitzgerald Avenue Community Garden.
A photograph of a model city at the Rebuild Central office on Lichfield Street. The model was created by members of the public as part of the Christchurch City Council's Transitional City consultation project.
A photograph of Mike Hewson's artwork, 'Government Life Suspension', on the side of the former Chancery Arcade.
A photograph of an architecture student making adjustments to the installation titled Halo at LUXCITY.
A photograph of a man and a child laying concrete at the site of the Gap Filler Community Chess project.
A photograph of people watching a musician perform at the Lyttelton Petanque Club.
A photograph of students setting up the Pavilions & Lighting Devices market for LUXCITY.
A photograph of a sign for Rawhiti Village Grove.
A photograph of Mike Hewson's installation 'View from the Studio' in Re:Start Mall.
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.
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 a large-scale sculpture titled Altitude being set up for LUXCITY.
A photograph of a large-scale sculpture titled Altitude being set up for LUXCITY.