Through Padlocks, Behind Barricades

Margaret Morton’s Glass House and the Squats of the Lower East Side

Through Padlocks, Behind Barricades explores the squatter movement on New York’s Lower East Side (Loisaida) in the 1990s. It features Margaret Morton’s photographs of life in Glass House, an abandoned glass factory at the corner of Avenue D and East 10^th Street. Several dozen squatters made the building their home for sixteen months, until police evicted them in winter 1994. The exhibition presents Morton’s in-depth portrait of one squat, with an array of printed materials exploring the debates that arose over squatters’ rights.

Interference Archive worked in partnership with the Margaret Morton Archive to produce the exhibition, an accompanying zine, two panel discussions and a film screening. Program details will be announced soon.