Rights to the City

"Right to the City" is an international movement combating the political, cultural and environmental repercussions of inequitable land development. Over the last decade, advocate and photographic ethnographer Dominic Moulden has traversed shorelines, capturing the global resistance against displacement.

This traveling exhibition provides a survey of grassroots organizations, scholars, and community members combating the political, cultural and global environmental repercussions of gentrification. The first site location, Boston University, is anchored by images taken by Moulden in 2023, and hosted by urbanist and scholar-activist Loretta Lees, Director of the Initiative on Cities at Boston University. Thereafter, the exhibition will travel to London. It will be hosted in partnership with Queen Mary University of London, where the display will center around images Moulden captured in 2018 while touring sites with Loretta Lees and working with Dr. Joseph Hoover, Director of TheoryLAB and Reader in Political Theory at Queen Mary University of London.

Curated by academic Ky Vassor, "Right to the City" serves as a call to action, uplifting ways we can all safeguard the fundamental human right to a healthy place called home. This exhibition is a collaboration between BU Art Galleries and the Initiative on Cities

About the Initiative on Cities

The Initiative on Cities (IOC) at Boston University is a global urban research center founded in 2014 that serves as an interdisciplinary hub for urbanists, connecting research and practice and leading place-based experiential learning programs for students. We marshal the talents and resources of wide-ranging disciplines across the university and forge ties to cities locally, nationally, and globally – in pursuit of creating more livable and resilient cities. Additional information may be found at www.bu.edu/ioc.