The Bin Commandments 2

West Leicester, February 2019

Hardly topical - but I think it counts, nonetheless.  In the interests of full disclosure - I should reveal that this one's actually my own, although painted back in the day, by my home's previous occupant.  Stupidly, it was only after capturing the first 'Bin Commandment' that I remembered I had one waiting in my very own back yard.  

I should really have cleaned the text off years ago, but have always found it a quaint example of period resistance.  I guess it's also testimony to the durability of modern paints - even if the Tax has long since disappeared, in every sense.

The Bin Commandments 1

West Leicester, February 2019

I've been cataloguing refuse bins for a while now.  In many respects, they seem to play a similar role to abandoned fridges, as sentinels of my local landscape.  However, the focus is more on the textual content, than the carrier (or indeed, the actual contents).

In a neighbourhood of tightly-packed, often multi-occupancy, terraced housing, the territoriality and etiquette of wheelie bin use is a matter of some importance - and potential trigger of social tension, on occasion.  And, quite obviously, as a motif - the bins also stimulate a meditation on our disposable, consumer economy, and current attitudes to the provision of public services.  As ever, though, the unofficial will always subvert the official; and observed reality will always short circuit any trite theory I might have formulated about the work I'm doing.  I honestly wouldn't have it any other way.  

I wonder if these will become another little blog series?  We'll see...