The City as a Body Politic

Occupation of public space as a political act has allowed a system of non-hierarchal government to entrench itself deep within the organizational and administrative operations of the occupy movement. As the process of occupation develops, the ephemeral nature of the protest camp, and its subsequent urban form, is superseded by a more permanent habitation. Through a combination of appropriation and expropriation of the city’s existing void spaces, a burgeoning new body politic evolves from the roots of the occupy movement.

One such burgeoning void space is that of the former bullring markets, once set for redevelopment under the big city plan. The demolition of the wholesale markets, as a result of managed decline and privatization, has a detrimental effect upon the indoor, outdoor and rag markets. As the relationship between produce (wholesale market) and trade (market) is severed, the market traders are unable to sustain and compete with the business model as it currently stands. As such they are forced to vacate the market infrastructure and trade elsewhere. This leads to the emergence of informal markets across the southern gateway site, adopting the nomadic/ephemeral tactics previous employed by the occupy protests.

The vacant market site then falls into disrepair as private investment stagnates and the state is forced to follow a policy of austerity imposed by the IMF/World Bank. The indoor market eventually has to be demolished as it falls victim to arson and is deemed unsafe. The occupy movement then decide to expropriate the Rag market building to ensure that it does not suffer the same fate. The threshold location and the nature of the internal spaces result in the building becoming the political heart of the movement. The now demolished wholesale market is adopted as a public space that forms counter-spectacle to that of the Selfridges commodity-spectacle. The informal markets relocate upon this threshold space. As a result of the amalgamation of Market traders and customers, innumerable small eating and drinking establishments emerge, becoming centers of sociality and politics.

The former rag market, as a house of government, then connects symbiotically with this heterogeneous space creating a relationship between the private, public and commercial spaces. This therefore creates a radically different spectacle to that of the Selfridges site to the north. It develops a counter spectacle, a public space for the public, the city as a body politic.