Camping housing is once again in the public eye today. Due to the financial and economic crisis, housing security is no longer guaranteed for an ever-growing group of people. Every day in Flanders, more than 30 families lose the roof over their heads because they can no longer pay the house rent. In addition, Flemish policy on camping housing is also anything but unambiguous. Every province or municipality seems to apply its own rules. This ranges from new attempts to regularize campsite living (province of Flemish Brabant) to intentions to simply shut down entire camping sites (province of Antwerp). What is the best strategy to deal with this informal form of living in our current society remains a big question on which opinions differ widely.
Researchers Els Vervloesem and Barbara Van Dyck, together with Marie-Françoise Plissart (photographer) and Joeri De Bruyn (Public Space), made a book about this phenomenon. Using three short stories and a series of images, they take you behind the scenes of living on campsites in the Brussels area. Through language and imagination, they introduce you to and reflect on this spontaneously evolved form and culture of living, created on the margins of formal planning and housing.
Camping Paradiso
12 x 17 cm, 142 pages, paperback and postcards
Language: Dutch and French
Auteurs: Els Vervloesem, Barbara Van Dyck
Fotografie: Marie-Françoise Plissart
Vormgeving: Sven Beirnaert
Uitgever: Public Space, 2015
ISBN: 9789491789076