Houses and the contexts in which they become homes are at the core of my research and writing practice. I engage with this topic as a sociologist, visual storyteller and writer. I created this website in an attempt to bring together different modes of seeing, imagining, and writing about housing.
I earned a Ph.D. degree in Sociology from The New School for Social Research (New York City), with a doctoral research focused on everyday life in low-income communities dwelling in the tenements of New York City and Buenos Aires between 1870 and 1920. The dissertation proposes a novel approach to evaluating the life-long impact of low-income housing developments designed to promote the health of residents. It also brings attention to the limitations of normative approaches to contemporary “slums” that link morality and health to housing, leaving little room for bottom-up approaches to the practices of making a home in the public or private sector.
My work has reflected on how, the often silenced, human and nonhuman bodies stitched together the early twentieth century city - a city they inhabited together. Recently, I have used photographs of windows taken in different cities around the world before and during the COVID-19 pandemic to prompt an analysis of urban flows at a time when our cities came to a halt. I examined the role of windows in supporting city dwellers’ wellbeing during these times of physical distancing, self-isolation and quarantine. I discussed how windows are caught up in a series of dichotomies that posit what is inside against the outside, the intimate against the public, home against street, stability against unpredictability, among others. I explored some of the ways in which windows not only mediate human interactions with the world around but also actively participate in their everyday lives, especially at the current moment when the lack of access to green spaces in cities around the world brought renewed attention to tenure categories. Given the restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, windows have taken on an even more important role in supporting dwellers’ quality of life and wellbeing, together with other more-than-human agents such as books, house plants, trees, pets, urban gardens, or rooftops. I approached the analysis from a photographic angle, working with and against the digital archive I had compiled to inquire into more-than-representational dimensions of people’s lived experiences.
In August 2019, I relocated to London. From here I have continued to conduct research and write about issues connected to housing and, especially, to inquire into sustainable solutions for affordable, social, and public housing. I remain committed to using research as a tool for designing a more equitable built environment that considers social and political contexts.
Regards,
Olimpia Mosteanu, Ph.D.