Yurt Empire

Yurt Empire is a rogue housing project and site specific encounter.

Yurt Empire was an attempt to ART-ifically graft and insert an artist’s colony and economy onto an apparent ‘wasteland’. It was also a live art work containing a growing number of sustainable and unsustainable situations; A durational performance based installation about housing and living, and a discursive space exploring the cultural commons, urban renewal and a remix of permaculture design.

Yurt Empire brought together 23 artists to respond to the simplicity of the basic yurt design and the contested history and notions of “Wastelands” as the complicated lens through which to explore urban renewal, land value, and affordable housing motifs in Australia, and specifically Sydney. This bold and adventurous work irreverently engages the nightmare of the “little Aussie Dream” home, as Sydney rises to become the second least affordable city in the world.

Artists: Rudy Ardianto, Heidi Axelsen, Zanny Begg, Clare Britton, Rebecca Conroy, Alexandra Crosby, Chris Fox, Gawaa Ganbold, Jennifer Hamilton, Dave Harris, Katie Hepworth, Craig Johnson, Hugo Moline, Matt Prest, Adriano Pupilli, Sumugan Sivanesan, Phoebe Torzillo, Pia van Gelder, Anique Vered, Tessa Zettel.

Director: Rebecca Conroy
Development: February – September 2013
Presentation: April, 2014