Faculty of Design

Illustration

Patricia Wisniewski

Disposession

In the GTA's rental landscape, the relationship between tenant and landlord is rarely equal. Many who rent know the particular feeling of being surveilled in a place that is supposed to be your own. Honey badgers are an extremely territorial animal and are known for their aggressiveness no matter the size of their opponent. I have chosen to represent the ferocious landlord as a brass door knocker, fixed to the entrance of a property it guards. On the knocker hangs a cluster of keys, each one a different tenant, a different life held loosely in someone else’s grip. Above the badger, a peephole on the door: a reminder that you are being watched.

“When I look at this piece, I can hear the sound of the keys clanging together if I dared to try using that door knocker.”