Confronting the Eviction Epidemic

An ongoing exhibit at the National Building Museum is designed to make visitors lose sleep over the scope of evictions in the United States, as well as the experience of evictions at the personal level.

1 minute read

April 25, 2018, 12:00 PM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Eviction

Daniel Arauz / Flickr

The National Building Museum is currently showing in exhibit based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Evicted, by Matthew Desmond.

Rachel Kaufman describes the exhibit as "bite-size" in an article that shares insight into the substance and ambition of the exhibit. "The Evicted exhibit may be digestible, but it won’t necessarily go down easy."

According to Kaufman, the exhibit makes the pain of eviction clear. "In three small rooms, museum staff have constructed houses that are inside-out: Wallpaper lines the outside, doorknobs jut out from odd places, and walls don’t extend from floor to ceiling. Inside, museum visitors can view photographs and audio slideshows from people telling their stories of eviction."

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