To the North

To the North is a performative architecture project to rethink urban expansion through a nomadic process of return and exchange. Working closely with professional house movers Tonia Carless is investigating the northern Swedish practice of moving whole houses from one location to another. Her research into the spatial politics of house-moving is particularly focused on how the space between the land and a building changes. The relationship between a building and its ground is a space in which to consider the material, economic and legal frameworks which construct ideas of Västerbotten and Norrland. The project will create new works, as an object and an accompanying archive, which investigates the social, cultural and economic factors in the space between a building and its location. The object will move north out of the city of Umeå as a series of participatory events.