Streets

Noticing More: Trailer Trashed

“I always see the absurdity in most situations. It's my experience of how life works.”

Natasha Lyonne

We used to live in one of London’s dumping grounds.

Before the Olympics of 2012. Before Hackney Wick found itself with a shiny new Overground station and a burgeoning population of residents to snatch up the fancy new waterside abodes, not many people lived in Fish Island. It was a community of live/work art spaces. Drafty, crumbling, time weathered, cavernous places originally intended for industrial use. Not especially quaint, the streets were makeshift galleries for street and guerrilla artists. Often strewn with litter and post-semi legal rave residue, the pavements were often lined with discarded N2O cartridges. Taking up the most space amongst the random “rubbish”, trailers (among other vehicles), were a common sight.

I took pics of quite a few during our time in the area. Here are some of my favourites:

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I wonder what makes certain areas more prone to fly-tipping than others? From what I observed, it’s usually an area with fewer residents and less security monitoring. An area that seems on the fringes of somehow. Places where less people will complain or make an issue of it. It’s interesting that despite the usual deterrents, (fine warnings and clamping) this still happened in the area. Can’t say that it ever bothered us. I suppose we just accepted it as part of the personality of the area. We never really understood why local authorities bothered to clamp them or stick fines on them.

Noticing More: Disembodiment

If you think about it, there are a lot of body parts scattered across our cities.

Disembodied heads bedecked with hats or spectacles to tempt the willing consumer. Various appendages can be found in street markets and posh department stores. Museums are filled to the brim with ancient extremities. Occasionally, we might even come across some discarded limbs on our local streets.

Bow London

Bow London

Bow, London

Bow, London

Bow, London

Bow, London

Bow, London

Bow, London

Cody Dock, London

Cody Dock, London

Nikko, Japan

Nikko, Japan

Shimotakaido, Tokyo

Shimotakaido, Tokyo

Brick Lane, London

Brick Lane, London

Sangenjaya, Tokyo

Sangenjaya, Tokyo

We’ve observed that mannequins seem the easiest to overlook and can at times seem even comical in their disembodied state. Dolls of on the other hand take on an eerie disposition. Yet ancient statues. though mutilated by time are still admired in museums and galleries worldwide. Why? An answer to this puzzle could be explained by the words of George Nelson; “the essence of a beautiful thing can survive a surprising amount of damage”.

What our friends and followers have noticed:

One of the biggest joys of running Super Ordinary Life is receiving observations from our friends and people who have recently come across us on Instagram or Twitter. We have a fine foursome of photos to accompany our “disembodiment” issue from Cardboardcities, Jordan Bunker, thesilvercherry and frenchtartelette

Kitty from Cardboardcities noticed these lower halves in Cardiff.

Kitty from Cardboardcities noticed these lower halves in Cardiff.

 
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This elegant trio was noticed in London by our buddy Jordan Bunker.

 

thesilvercherry has a great eye! She noticed this choir of heads in Tooting Market, London.

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Noticed by frenchtartelette in Saigon, Vietnam.


This curious theme is definitely one that we will revisit with future blog posts, so if you do have any pics or words that you would like to share there are a few ways that you can get involved :

Instagram

#super_ordinarylife on Instagram. We’d love it if you shared your captures there. We will always credit and link back to you when we use your pics both here or on Instagram.

Email

Send your pictures and friendly words to : Yasumi @ superordinarylife (.) com