‘On What Grounds?’ participatory residency at the Old Fire Station

On What Grounds? The Roots of Land Inequality & the Art of Land Justice

Come visit Land Justice Oxfordshire’s exhibition at the Old Fire Station, open Monday – Saturday, 9 – 4pm and share what your experience of living in Oxfordshire is:

~ do you feel like there’s enough community space? enough arts venues? access to public space?
~ do you feel diverse voices have a platform and enough space is welcoming for ALL?
~ do you feel like your access to food, nature and everything you need for your wellbeing is met in Oxfordshire?
~ do you feel like it’s easy to feel at home in Oxfordshire? Is good quality, safe and affordable housing accessible for all?

We want to hear from you all – because we don’t think we feel like everyone is catered for in Oxfordshire sadly. And we believe that this isn’t ok, not on any grounds.

On What Grounds? The Roots of Land Inequality and the Art of Land Justice is our exhibition where we invite you to visit the past, present and dream the future of Oxfordshire – so that your food, health, housing needs are met; as well as those of others around you. @landjusticeox

Land and the stewardship of land provides for our needs, and the needs of other species.

Food, habitats, homes, culture, medicine, communities – life.

But profit maximisation, by the increasingly wealthy minority drives decisions about land usage, rather than the needs of the majority human and non-human residents.

The result? People sleep rough or gather in cramped conditions, in the shadow of empty houses and buildings. They go hungry but head home past fertile soil. We can’t hear the birds singing a mile behind this fence. We can’t hire a room to eat in or sing in together.

Today, half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population.
Oxbridge colleges own an area more than four times the size of Manchester.
Large landowners, both ancient and new, are common in England.

But much of the land they exclude us from, was “Commons” – once accessible for all.

From its gated lawns to the concrete colonialists standing above them, Oxford University reigns over the city centre and beyond.

In the same way that immense wealth is hidden behind ancient walls in Oxfordshire, immense poverty is hidden behind mouldy tenements and in the streets less frequented by tourists.

10 of Oxfordshire’s 83 “areas” or neighbourhoods fall into the 20% most deprived areas in England. This translates across access to food, health, housing and more – resulting in a life expectancy of up to 13 years less than in Oxfordshire’s most affluent areas.

As long as land has been taken from people, people have resisted. Today, here, we refuse to be tourists in our own city. It’s time for us to unearth our collective stories, let memories dance with imagination, on the land where we belong.

Land Justice Oxfordshire is a collective of local residents who formed in 2021, using a performance of Three Acres and a Cow on folk song and land justice as a catalyst. Land Justice Oxfordshire bring together different groups and individuals working around the many intersecting facets of land justice in Oxfordshire, raising awareness and inviting engagement with the extent to which access to land sits at the heart of many of the social and economic injustices we face today.