Description of the project by [SIC]
The Welcome Hotel is a paradoxical place for the urban and social concentration of Madrid's evictions. A temporary accommodation not only for tourists, but also for political refugees, undocumented migrants and families that have been evicted from their homes. Even though there are more than 260,000 empty homes in Madrid, around 300,000 mortgages have been foreclosed on since 2009 in the city.
The socio-material process of evictions has composed an urban assemblage where different co-isolated entities mediate: banks, financial and vulture funds, legal and economic initiatives, government agencies, public institutions, and security forces. This process separates citizens from their material and affective homes, communities, and families. Welcome Hotel aims to describe how those co-isolated and connected entities form this urban assemblage.
In this context, the Platform of People Affected by Mortgage (Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca, PAH)—a citizen initiative of resistance and action—defends the interests of residents from the banks that have been rescued with public money. The PAH is a self-organized platform and network that provides collective assistance and mutual support for the needs and lives of the members or any citizen.
There are also alternative networks that operate in Madrid after the evictions take place. New models of informal urbanism have emerged for evicted people—forward and back migrations, informal economic markets for squatting, circulation of objects from houses to storage spaces and digital selling platforms—unfolding affections that recapitalize the bodies and objects of the citizens.
The aim of this research is not only to render visible the evictions process and its complexities, but also to propose possible urban assemblages that respond to this new condition.
