Dwellings

The short video Dwellings (see link) was originally created as part of an online project, the precariHousing map, initiated by artist claude wittmann in collaboration with a group of invisibly disabled artists under the name ddadh (dispossessed disabled artists demanding housing). This group has worked towards improving the housing of disabled individuals in this city. The map can be viewed at: <https://claudewittmann.ca/MAP/precarihousingthemap.html>. it was created to hold and transform housing-related trauma via audio recordings, writing and visual art. This artistic process safely visits the trauma and its psychosomatic traces with a compassionate and repairing intent. The imagination can then take the risk to stretch a tiny bit into restored thinking, images of life, which can feel totally new. In other words, utopias. The video Dwellings uses the concept of a prank toy - a snake bite box - and transforms it into a commentary on the current housing crisis. It's a childlike representation of housing as it currently exists in Toronto (dystopia) vs. what could exist in the future (utopia). In 2024 Fatma Hendawy asked three members of ddadh (claude wittmann, Serena McCarroll & I'mme) to create a gallery installation that would represent the map for the exhibit "if i long for it,"