From 2013 to 2023, the unhoused residents of West Oakland’s Wood Street encampment constructed a sprawling informal neighborhood from the city’s vast material and spatial excess. They built and furnished myriad shanties, tiny homes, and shacks from items cast off by Oakland’s middle and upper classes and by the industries surrounding the city’s massive port. It was common to see tarps and banners used as shading materials, fastened to utility poles and chain link fences. Forklift pallets became picket fences demarcating yards. Structures made from plywood and discarded furniture populated the shade beneath freeway.

react/review is a journal shaped by reactions. To react is to act in response, to reflect and return to a first actor. The term is active and encompasses the spirit of lively discourse and critical engagement. Perhaps it carries a connotation of hastiness, but we contend that this temporal association locates us firmly in the present. We envision this journal as a reaction to research trends and current global events, but we employ the term to also signal the discursive element of this project. In other words, react/review is a responsive journal. Our inaugural volume adopts the symposium’s theme: “Representation, Materiality, & the Environment.” This topic considers the way environments, landscapes, and the natural world have been represented by artists and architects as a means to ritualistic, scientific, political, leisure, or spiritual ends.