house poor, 2022
live-stream performance/artist book
performance duration: until the artist looks at all available Craigslist ads (with parameters),
or until she becomes inexorably depressed—whichever comes first
video duration: 45 minutes, looped
A durational live-stream performance, “house poor” (2022) documents the artist as she scrolls through Vancouver’s rentals on Craigslist. In a tone akin to ASMR, she softly reads the advertisements’ key details aloud and notes any odd or charming aspects of their accompanying photos. Simultaneously, Bischoff’s own writing and imagery sporadically appear across the stream, complicating the fetishization and frustration that underscores her perpetual apartment hunting.
Considering her family histories and Vancouver’s ongoing housing crisis through “house poor,” the artist asks: What does it mean to be a housing-insecure settler-descendant on stolen Indigenous land? And is there something particular about the brand of white anger that settler-descendants may feel about being less able than previous generations to own their own home?
Considering her family histories and Vancouver’s ongoing housing crisis through “house poor,” the artist asks: What does it mean to be a housing-insecure settler-descendant on stolen Indigenous land? And is there something particular about the brand of white anger that settler-descendants may feel about being less able than previous generations to own their own home?
Live-streamed on Tuesday, June 7, 2022 and exhibited from Wednesday, June 8 - Wednesday, June 22, 2022 for the exhibition "Graduating Students' Exhibition" at the VAV Gallery in Montreal, QC.