H3 Realty - Homeless Homes for the Homeless, 2005
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ARTIST STATEMENT
What is H3 Realty?

H3 Realty is an independent artist intervention, invention and invitation. It seeks to explore the idea of home from a linguistic perspective that begins with homelessness. The impetus for this work finds its roots in the intersection of timelines and inputs that highlighted the troubled nature of this theme to me:

1.Listening to a local CBC radio report on the inventory of 'homeless' in our fair city of Victoria, BC
2.Watching several back-to-back episodes of In Living Color, featuring Homey D Clown, The Home Boys Shopping Network and a unique homeless handyman improvement segment called "This old box" in particular
3.Hearing the song "Underwear Goes Inside the Pants" by Lazyboy repeatedly on 91.3 The Zone and
4.Seeing a startling 'homeless' 'location' under a bridge in the Spadina Ravine in Toronto that just happened to be under one of the most wealthy neighborhoods in the city.
5. Working in commercial advertising for television (including the Real Estate Channels) and corporate marketing for 6 years and feeling that there had to be a way to subvert the conventions by adopting the conventions.

I decided to build an agency. What was needed was not a social service or government agency but an agency known for success; an agency with a tenacious ability to create instant possibilities in dire circumstances ("Just a little TLC and YOU TOO can retire!" ;" A Real Fixer-Upper For a real Handy Man- LIKE YOU!")....an agency that uses language to transform the reality of what we see with our own eyes into an irresistible opportunity for creative living: The Real Estate Agency.

With the intermingling of thoughts and ideas generated by these inputs, the simple yet inherently problematic concept for H3 Realty was born - the Agency's core marketing piece would be a web site highlighting central public properties as potential locations to fill one's real, imagined or potential homelessness needs. Whenever possible the real world office would emerge as an installation hosted by a gallery, thereby making the impossible possible, the virtual into reality.

These locations (both virtual offerings and real world installations) are multi layered metaphors on public and corporate life and the associations of language i.e. the public purse, public opinion, public will and of course public responsibility. As such these metaphors are also reminders on a social level that 'homelessness' is not isolated to 'others less fortunate' and that we can choose to identify with this concept and potentially change it. In some ways the backdoor service entrance to public buildings is how H3 Realty helps us to visualize the reality for ourselves. After all, how often would one search real estate listings for others? if we did and the person was essentially homeless, what could we find for them?

The questions arose: is it possible to create something as revenue oriented as a Real Estate Agency and redo (or undo) it by taking away it's primary functions to make loads of money? Can such a thing exist in the real world without also being a nonprofit charity? Is it possible to think of home/homelessness from a different perspective and what is our perspective anyway? Can art and web technology unite in this quest? How can we beat back this growing sense of frustration and helplessness?

I don't pontificate answers and there is no 'call to action'; this project is an attempt to explore some different and perhaps differing perspectives to the ideas of home and homelessness and of course, Real Estate.

I invite you to come to the Open House (see left) and to add content to the web site either by sending in listings, adding comments to listings or contributing to the Forum.

I look forward to seeing and hearing your Inputs.

Heidi Bergstrom
October 18, 2005