Naïve Urban Excavation

The artifacts one finds in the urban space of a region reveals the social nature of that place. I experimented with this in my Vancouver neighbourhood, situated right around Main and Hastings, by walking for five minutes and gathering a tally of the items I found. In my excavation I uncovered rigs, human vomit, dog poo and littered debris. Crude imagery that speaks a socioeconomic storey.

The rigs on the street signify that it is a neighborhood where open drug use is prevalent; these items are the residual icons of a class of people unable to shoot up within doors, the houseless. The vomit signifies the hipsters, who party at the local dives alongside the regulars, vomiting together when both have excessively imbibed. This mixing of socioeconomic class vomit is a point of joy for both parties. Hipsters find the bars have very affordable prices to get smashed. Or more often than not, if you find yourself closer to a skid/ hipster, a consenting place to smuggle a flask into and get inebriated exceptionally cheaply. While the locals tolerate this infiltration, they do so pleasantly as it is implicit with flirtatious energy and revealing clothing worn by these youthful revelers. Dog poo speaks of an entirely different class, those who have a living space, likely along the water. That they leave their dogs poo on the street reflects their view of the neighborhood and their unquestioned liberty within it. And last but not least, the debris, which brings us back again to the houseless class. There are disposal bins that abound in the neighborhood; albeit often overflowing, thus not using the disposal bins can infer something else. To the untrained eye, what can seem like waste is often someone's sole belongings. That it is on the street can either mean it has been abandoned, much like the various other comforts these people have had to forgo, or that there is no other space to store it in.