A Street That Stays Quiet

Layered posters, a shopfront and a narrow street holding onto the stillness of a Sunday morning. I went back over three seasons to see what changes on a street where nothing seems to; the answer is the paper, which is never the same twice.

Three visits

Winter gave the bare glass, spring the first layer of concert bills, and the last visit in August the paste-ups that finally covered the whole window. Nothing dramatic happens, but the repetition of paper, glass and paint slowly reveals the character of the street.

I photograph it from the same spot each time, a manhole cover I can find with my feet, at the same hour. The discipline is the point: when the frame does not move, everything that moves becomes visible.

A street does not change. The paper on it does, and the paper is the diary.

What the window says

Read the posters from the bottom up and you get the year: a festival in March, a lost cat in April, three concerts in June, an election nobody on the street voted in. The shop behind them has been closed since the first visit and nobody has taken the sign down. That is the story; the photographs only keep it.