Becoming Movable: A Motif-Rhythm Tour of Property

Becoming Movable is a virtual tour of that artifact, focusing on its how its existence tells a story about the creation of property and the uneven development of cities.

It was commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2013 as part of their "Artists Respond" series, in which artists create digital projects in response to an exhibit or object in the museum's collection. The Travel Office chose to focus on a fireplace mantel that originated in a historic home in a Chicago west side neighborhood--East Garfield Park.

Continue to the project >

Embassy to the Riparian City of the Doan Brook Watershed Update

Our Temporary Embassy to the Riparian City of the Doan Brook Watershed is now residing at the Salon des Refusés at 1387 East Boulevard, Cleveland, thanks to the wonderful Julie Patton! Read a fantastic history and description of the Salon by Julie at the About Place Journal.
We're honored that the embassy continues to have a home, especially there.

Stories in Reserve: Volume One Now only $10

We still have copies of Stories in Reserve Volume One that we'd like to get out into the world, so if you'd like our first hardcopy guide book, you can now get it for only $10! You can buy directly from us (via Paypal) or through our friends at Half Letter Press.

Stories in Reserve is our answer to the Lonely Planet series of guide books. Volume One is a full-color, 36 page book + 3 audio CDs featuring three audio tours of the territory known as North America.
Tours include:
Ricardo Miranda Zúñiga guides us into Tijuana and finds one example of transnational commerce in a rather unexpected place—a dentist's chair.
Sarah Kanouse takes us to a Superfund- classified National Wildlife Refuge in Southern Illinois.
Ryan Griffis, Lize Mogel & Sarah Ross walk us around Vancouver's False Creek, the site of two global mega-events.

Storing utopia is getting expensive in Hong Kong

This story from the LA Times presents a stark depiction of the relationship between speculative real estate, parking and inequality.

‎Parking space transactions in November rose more than five-fold compared with a year earlier at 1,640, according to Centaline, one of the largest real estate firms in Hong Kong. The average price of each space sold was $92,307, up 20% from a year earlier... The lofty prices paid for parking berths are unthinkable for working-class Hong Kong residents — many of whom are finding their city painfully unaffordable. The city's wealth gap is now at a 30-year high... 'People go crazy living in such a small place,' said Lee, a 26-year-old bakery employee, who pays $192 a month for the room — which is about half the size of a typical parking space.