Jakob Wirth

Parasite Parking

Parasite Parking

Parasitic Intervention in the public space of Chicago in the framework of the RAISIN Exhibition of 6018 North and the Chicago Architecture Biennial. 2021. Collaboration with Alexander Sacharow.

Parasite Parking reclaims public space by inhabiting and activating it, 24/7. Parking spaces are now a battleground of the future city. They are the border: between private and public, between staying and leaving, between the mobility of yesterday and the more climate-friendly alternatives of tomorrow, between privileged areas and areas of deprivation. Parking spaces are increasingly subject to gentrification and rent-seeking, just like every other available space in the city. But they are also niches in a city for emancipatory practices. Parasite Parking occupies these niches and explores their subversive potential.

Parasite Parking is an intervention in the public space that uses a multifunctional platform camouflaged as a parking space. The platform can adapt to its paved environment or easily transform to create space for various uses: as a living space, a stage, a café or simply into a conventional parking space. Parasite Parking is an uninvited guest on the spaces that should be available to all of us, and yet are currently occupied only by the steel bodies of modernity.

During the period of the intervention Parasite Parking collaborated with different collectives, artist runned spaces and institutions such as: Chicago Tenant Movement, Open Sheds used fo what?, NoNation Art Laboratory, 6018 North, Occupation Campamiento Ponderosa, Tender House Project and SAIC. Activating the space and transforming the street into a public realm.

Press:

The Urban Activist: „Parking spaces, the battleground of the future city“

New City Art: „A Public Disturbance: A Review of Parasite Parking“

Further Information at: Parasite-Parking.net