Staking Claim

Staking Claim

Staking Claim visually parodied the legal system using a bizarre land dispute. I invited 20 heirs to physically stake a claim to a piece of property that has been used as a public ballfield since 1956. Each heir received a soil analysis, historical information, and legal advice at the site. Participants posted suggestions for use of the narrow strips of land 3.6 feet wide by 265.05 feet long. In this work I shared Gordon Matta-Clark's concern with abstract space embodied in his 1973 Fake Estates piece where he purchased tiny slivers of unusable land in New York in order to critique the reification of space through the laws of property.