the park

Washington Boulevard, Seattle, Wa

This park in one of Seattle's wealthiest areas, serves as a memorial to people all over the world.

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freeways

Intersection of I5 / I90, Seattle, Wa

American Cities are generally designed around the road as the main transportation infrastucture. While the City Government of Seattle acknowledges the need to build more "sustainable" roads, no definition of what that means is given. The problem, I think lies not in the road structure, but in the way the road and the car is viewed as necessities in the urban landscape. Seattle may want to portray an image of itself as an environmentally progressive city (the Climate Protection Initiative is the first of four "pillars of the City's environmental work"), but as long as the road rules, it will have a major impact on the city skyline.

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playground

First Hill, Seattle, Wa

From the strict confines of urban right-angular architecture emerges a strange freak. Medgar Evers Pool has walls slanting at angels possible to ride a bike on, and the roof is a concrete playground.

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u district murals

U-district, Seattle, Wa

The murals in Seattle's University district were painted over the course of four weeks, by 40 young artists. The organizer, Jill Rothberger, got permission from the City to paint the north part of the underpass. As more volunteers joined in the painting, more space was needed, and just to the south was another stretch of unadorned grey concrete. So they started painting there as well.

Near completion of the piece, two City departments put in objections: no permission had been issued for the south wall, and some paintings on the north wall looked “too much like graffiti”. When pressed that graffiti style is not a crime in itself, Dave Chew of Department of Transportation said he had no flexibility when it comes to graffiti.

In the english language, graffiti is the word used to describe all illegal use of paint and markers on property.

However, the City came to a decision that the wall should stay as it is. The appropriate permissions were granted, and two years later, the wall stands.

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Download high-resolution version (79 MB)

gum wall

Post Alley, Seattle, WA.

It started in the early nineties, as patrons of weekly improv theater performances would stick pennies to the wall with gum while waiting in line.

Althought the land lords of Pike Place Market fought for years to get the wall cleaned off, it grew as more elaborate sculptures formed.

In an article in USA Today, it was mentioned as one of ten “great places to sample quirky Americana”.

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street corner

at 4:41 in the morning, almost no one notices a human bundle on the corner.

Synopsis for Urban Tracks video blog project

English version. För Svenska, klicka på den här länken

City governments care about their city's image. Much energy is devoted to keeping places that are popular with tourists and other visitors clean. Come morning, no traces of the drama, fights and parties of the night can remain. Traces of the people living outside of the system, the homeless, are tended to with great care. Such things are not granted a place in the outwards image of the city. But what the controlling power wants with the city, and what their inhabitants make it be, are two different matters.

The city, of course, has its own life that cannot be done away with by administration: the city is after all the sum of everyone that spend their time there. Everyone that lives and works and makes their life there. There are places in the city that are not kept as tidy as the more central parts. Some have turned into graveyards for broken bikes and shopping carts, others become a sort of outdoor home for those who don't have one. Teenagers find a delapidated house, the destruction of which has been delayed: there they congregate to experience all the excitemnts of adolescence. All of these are traces of life in the city, there to see for those who look.

I'm looking for places and situations that challenge the picture of the city as an ordered architectural system, and instead brings to the surface something that is more reminiscent of real life: chaotic, unpredictable and organical. I already know that you need only scratch the surface to reveal the unpolished reality. The challenge lies in discovering life — as a visitor — in a city relatively unknown to me: Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.

I'll find what I'm looking for by exploring and talking to locals. The exploration will manifest itself as five or so audiovisual collages, published here on this blog. Although it might at times look much like a documentary, I make no claims to be objective. I want to convey my image of the city as a living organism.


Svensk version. For English, click this link

Städers styrande makt är måna om stadens ansikte utåt. Mycket energi läggs ned på att hålla rent kring platser där folk, speciellt turister och andra besökare rör sig. När morgonen kommer får inga spår av nattens fester, bråk och draman finnas kvar. Spår utav människorna som lever utanför systemet, de hemlösa, jobbas det hårt för att bli av med. Sådant tillerkänns inte en plats i stadens bild, i dess bygge av ett varumärke. Men vad de styrande vill med staden, och vad dess invånare får den till att vara, är två skilda ting.

Naturligtvis har staden ett eget liv som inte går att administrera bort: staden är trots allt summan av alla de som uppehåller sig där. Alla som bor och jobbar och lever där. Det finns platser som inte efterhålls på samma sätt som de centrala delarna av staden. Vissa ställen har blivit kyrkogårdar för cyklar och annat skrot, andra ställen blir till ett sorts utomhushem för de som inget annat hem har. Tonåringarna har hittat ett rivningshus där rivningen blivit försenad; där samlas de för att uppleva allt som är spännande i tonåren. Allt detta är spår av livet i staden, som finns där att beskåda för den som letar.

Jag är intresserad av att hitta platser och företeelser som utmanar bilden av staden som ett ordnat arkitekturellt system, och istället lyfter fram något som mer liknar riktigt liv: kaotiskt, oförutsägbart och organiskt. Det räcker med att lyfta på locket så bubblar det överallt därunder, det vet jag redan. Utmaningen ligger i att upptäcka livet som just besökare i en för mig relativt främmande stad: Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.

Jag kommer hitta det jag letar efter genom att gå runt på egen hand och utforska, och genom att prata med de som bor där. Gestaltningen kommer att ha formen av ungefär fem audiovisuella collage, publicerade på den här bloggen. Stundom kan det anta en dokumentär karaktär, men jag gör inga anspråk på att vara objektiv i mina observationer. Jag vill ge min bild av staden som levande organism.