Protest, Persist, Occupy
Amidst burgeoning social, economic, and political uncertainty, Manchester exists as a neoliberal metropolis, spearheaded by proliferation of private-sector developments, rentier capitalists, and boosterist politicians, with the city calling out for resurgent optimism and sociopolitical agency. ‘Protest, Persist, Occupy’ proposes an informal occupation of the Mancunian Way as a means of collective protest against neoliberal urbanism and extreme techno-optimist futures, forming a network of self-sufficient settlements.
The project unfolds across an incremental timeline of occupation, adaptation, and expansion, with phased construction and inhabitation periods. Initial inhabitation adopts temporary in-situ construction techniques, utilising a modular steel-framed structure with in-fill panels of unorthodox materials such as tarpaulin, construction hoardings, and puffer jackets in order to facilitate flexible occupation. In its later phases, the scheme establishes itself as a self-sufficient hub for protest, with development of essential services, social commons, and a circular economy. Beyond this singular occupation, the scheme then seeks to expand across the broader city-wide scale of the entire Mancunian Way, inhabiting further spaces amidst a greater web of protest infrastructure and sociopolitical visibility.
The proposal reflects growing risks of gentrification, displacement of marginalised groups, privatisation of public space, and decimation of social housing within long-standing communities across Manchester, and embracing salvaged and reclaimed materials, guerrilla techniques, and incremental occupation in order to reclaim the highway as a corridor for sociopolitical and environmental agency through protest and radical counterculture.
