In 2001, Rotterdam and Porto, the cultural capitals of Europe for that year, were besieged by international artists invited to design projects that explored these two cities and their spaces. The singular nature of each work in Squatters led to their installation as cell-like structures of mini-exhibitions, staking a claim on their urban sites and creatively reconceiving them.

There are a number of different crises, in various guises, in today's world. The most prominent of these is the global economic crisis, but this is not felt as keenly across the globe: there are also countries of economic prosperity. There is also, however, the museum crisis: the predominant model of the museum is collapsing. Again, this crisis is not constant everywhere--there are spaces that didn't have museums until recently and are now suddenly experiencing a museum boom, or else are still without museums but have initiatives that are taking care of heritage beyond the traditional model...