When I moved into my own apartment after university,
I could only afford a very modest dwelling. My living space
was difficult to live in, to say the least. To escape, I would go for very long
walks to clear my head. I would walk for hours from the west island to the
downtown hub to see a movie or do an errand and eat a modest meal. I passed
many commercial streets on the way full of many modest businesses. There were many
places life was cheap (mine too even to me).
About half distance to downtown I hit one
of the longest streets in the city. Circling this street was a large population
of the very poor, there was also a dense concentration of people. On the
street, originally, there were a lot of dry goods establishments that served as
general stores but with an emphasis on the garment manufacturing industry. They
would sell tools, appliances and clothing for the whole family as well as
buttons, material, scissors and needles. There was also a fair amount of family
tolerated prostitution amidst a thriving criminal counterculture. Around this
time, the police sergeant had taken it upon himself to clean up the area. He
started a government program to sponsor new businesses and because of the presence
of the garment trade, many beginning clothing designers opened up shop. These
were young designers that needed a lot of cheap, fast space and they were
willing and able to physically fight for them
The street itself crossed a large amount of
segregated communities and like the communities it was split into distinct sections
based on different cultures and countries. Interspersed with the garment
industry establishments were many ethnically inspired groceries stores suited
to people from the different neighborhoods (You had Portuguese in the Portuguese
section of the street, you had English in the English section of the street you
had Chinese etc.) I would later move to a home in this neighborhood and had
many agreeable shopping excursions sampling the different foods from all these
cultures. For example, I much enjoyed going to China town for pressed duck,
lychee nuts, and dim sum. The Jewish quarter boasted rye bread and delicatessens. The Portuguese section had a fabulous selection
of affordable restaurants with Portuguese Grill. These culturally diverse
grocery stores exist to this very day. You also had a lot of temporary space
that could be rented very cheaply for performance. It is from these
performances can I take inspiration for a current series of work that I am producing.
to advertise these performances a series of
very quick very rough posters were created.
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