Forgotten corners and the unfinished. Layers and textures in wasted spaces.

I’ve been exploring the neighbourhood in more depth with my children, specifically looking for overlooked corners, alleyways and paths that lead nowhere in particular. Through doing this I’ve discovered forgotten, neglected spaces with unfinished activities. There are intriguing layers and layers of clues where humans have been. A mix of man-made and natural materials, tangled and interwoven, abandoned buildings where a business has failed, gaps in fences to overgrown gardens, plastic mesh rolled up and left to disintegrate while dandelions push through concrete and grass that hides sheets of rotting plywood.

In and around my neighbourhood there is evidently a dissonance of community and underground reprobation. The local park is frequently searched by sniffer dogs and there are narrow paths that lead towards hidden spaces where dodgy goings on occur. Either sides of all walkways on the brambled hill are sprinkled with rubbish. There are people around, myself included, who voluntarily litter pick in an attempt to maintain a space that’s safe to roam around and pleasant to be in. Reminders of how the system fails many people in the UK are all around us. How our national government forces local councils to chip away at the resources that should tackle social issues all whilst barely maintaining public spaces. Empty buildings and unused car parks, places that hold so much potential, now stand forbidden for use because of inefficient red tape and doomed to decay.

I love the dichotomy of the orderly man made with the sprawling natural. How winter has stripped the trees and shrubs of their leaves to expose their delicate line structures. There is a corridor made by a chain link fence and a privet hedge, a garden fence that’s a made using disconnected materials, serving the purpose of a barrier without the luxury of aesthetic appeal. The sign has been taken from the old factory shop probably as a memento, leaving behind an X mark of the glue which once held it in place. Redundant signs are reclaimed for graffiti tagging. Plastic pipes are cut to ground level and left to collect rain water.

City Messages in Lockdown

On the subject of collages, here’s a few I made from photos of shops and businesses with covid related notices in their windows around the city of Norwich, where I live.

I find it interesting how the notices indicate the various approaches people have had in dealing with the pandemic, ultimately leading to lockdown. Not all shops were shut.

Some messages are tinged with regret and frustration and fear for the future. There were some very standard approved messages from chain companies and more personal ones from local businesses.

I think it chronicles how we’ve had to adapt and take the initiative where the government have fallen somewhat short in their leadership through this crisis.

I included messages that weren’t business related in this collection. Of course loads of people are displaying rainbows from their homes, trying to spread some positivity. And then there was some on-point graffitti on some of the walls. It’s interesting to witness the evolution of community, the ways in which people having to accept the temporary end of face to face contact and how we are all adapting to it and what kinds of messages people want to send out.

Apart from the notices there were very few people out and about. And what a varied approach to this new landscape. Some had masks on, some crossed the street to avoid each other and then some seemed barely aware of any risk and approached me for a chat! The rules of social protocol have changed overnight and left many puzzled and bemused.

I’ve lived here almost my entire life and never seen the city like this. I’m really glad I took the opportunity to document this phenomenon.