During the 1970s, a time of intensive de-industrialisation and the transition to an information economy in New York, artists found new ways to use the city. The creative use of abandoned and peripheral spaces intensified, especially in Lower Manhattan, which was becoming a centre of the commercial art world. Action Behind the Margins combines debates, performances pieces and film screenings to reveal a city where public and private spheres intermingle and marginal subjects assert their right to the city.