N55 Land
N55 Land
In 2001 the Danish Collective N55 installed LAND Cairn in the corner of the lot at 125 N Harvey Avenue in Oak Park (The Suburban). In 2007 the cairn was borrowed by the Museum of Contemporary Art for an exhibition titled "Mapping the Self." When the cairn was reinstalled in the yard it was not properly bolted to the carriage of its sunken concrete base. Consequently the cairn was stolen, likely for scrap metal in June 2007. A police report was filed. The LAND Cairn was never recovered.
The LAND Cairn is a geometric shaped object that is approximately 1x1x1 meter in dimension. The inside holds the N55 LAND manual that is also available on the N55 website. The purpose of the cairn is to mark free land. The Suburban has dedicated part of the yard at 125 N. Harvey Avenue as free space. The cairns have a frame of stainless acid resistant steel and built-in tanks of PE-plastic. The tanks are equipped with a transparent lid of polycarbonate, tightened with rubber strips.
In the project they called Land, N55 began to acquire and dedicate small plots of land, from northern Norway to the Californian desert, in less sparsely populated places in Denmark, Holland and Switzerland, and in waste patches of cities such as Chicago (Oak Park), all to public use. On each is erected a steel polyhedral cairn by which the area is declared to belong to "the commons". Anyone may use it as long as it is acknowledged that "Land gives access to land." While N55 has not been subject to serious legal harassment, it has received favorable attention from those concerned to protect the public domain, and from those looking for workable and just alternatives to patents and copyright.
Current LAND positions include:
N 70° 09' 42,5" E 019° 56' 41,3"
N 41° 53' 03,4" E 087° 46' 06,8"
N 33° 10' 43,9" E -117° 14' 26,7"
N 44° 36' 03,2'' E 001° 15' 04,6''
N 55° 14' 24,8" E 011° 56' 22,3"
N 52° 6' 04,5" E 005° 3' 04,5"
N 47° 19' 42,4'' E 009° 24' 31,6''
N 52° 18' 19,7" E 005° 32' 11,7"
N 41° 47' 58'' E 087° 36' 23''
N 57° 10' 43,3" E 010° 05' 13,1"
N 55° 58' 10,2'' E 013° 45' 16,2''
N 57° 20' 04,5" E 010° 30' 56,5"
N 56° 59' 55" E 009° 19' 33,7"
N 43° 17' 48,1'' E 000° 22' 21''
N 45° 09' 36" E 029° 41' 24"
N 29° 43' 29,1" W 095° 20' 32,6"
N 55° 14' 460" E 008° 51' 579"
With the help of the Propeller Fund, N55 can fabricate and ship another cairn to Oak Park, where it can be secured to the original base, once again making FREE Land for anyone to activate.
