The Short, Happy Life of Street Posters

By Mark Pickersgill
Photos by Mark Pickersgill, VanMap, and Amanda Mitchell

On the surface, postering might seem like a topic unworthy of discussion: take some paper, write or draw a message and slap the paper up where someone will see it. It seems harmless. But the simple act of postering has so much more meaning and significance than it would initially appear. Postering is (quite literally) a messy, troublesome, and often fickle business. This fact makes postering both an exciting medium and inherently problematic.

To some, posters might be seen as little more than crass, obtrusive clutter. Yet for others they are essential to the lifeblood and culture of a place. Thus, it is important to understand the forces and attitudes that lie behind street posters and the things that allow them to keep popping up even in places they are not supposed to. Their existence is tenuous, but the role of posters in public life should not be overlooked. The intent of this article is to draw an understanding of street postering in Vancouver. As such there is a need to explore the significance of posters, regulations, and the intriguing – if not confusing – culture of postering in the city.

As a medium, street posters are profound in their accessibility, directness and simplicity. From an objective point of view, street posters embody a civic culture that is messy, subversive, resourceful, and sometimes even deviant. But from another perspective, street posters also reflect something deeper: the creativity, entrepreneurship, passion and political ideals of communities. If posters were not an available medium it is probably fair to say that it would mean the loss of an essential component of participatory civic life. It is also not unrealistic to suggest that a city without street posters would be a much less interesting place not only to look at, but to live in as well.

The central tensions of street postering are, thus, questions of order versus disorder and legibility versus chaos. Street postering is about shock, surprise, and capturing attention. There is a certain type of playfulness (some might call it deviance) in the ability of posters to turn up anywhere, seemingly out of nowhere, only to disappear a short time later. Poster bombs (i.e. a barrage of posters) can literally be a race against time: survival of the fittest. In colouring outside of the lines of what is often “expected” within the public sphere, this unpredictability has led to a lack of respect for posters. As much as urban enthusiasts might fantasize about the city as a place of surprise and wonder, there is also an opposing tendency to contain, define, and regulate public spaces. Ironically, the lack of formal respect for street postering is partly a function of the fact that posters represent culture without permission and, almost by nature, are not intended to be formal or particularly orderly.

Street posters serve many different purposes. Whether advertising gigs, spreading political messages, notifying community events, or expressing artistic urges, posters are an integral part of DIY (Do It Yourself) culture. With a few scraps of paper, some markers, adhesive, and a little legwork, a full-fledged, grassroots marketing campaign can be born. As a means to get the word out about almost anything artistic, informational or political, with a mere $10 budget, posters are usually the first option. No doubt the internet and social networking sites (in particular) have taken on an expanded role in the public sphere, disseminating information and building community. But these mediated forms ultimately do not work on the same tactile level. Think of street posters as part of a broader community dialog: one in which anyone with an idea, a message, and a willingness to put in a little effort can participate in.

The life of a street poster is short, but poetic. There is something naturally fluid and regenerative about postering that nicely reflects the ebb and flow of public life. Posters are put up, looked at, defaced, ripped down, weathered, and sometimes simply ignored altogether. The cycle begins again almost as soon as it starts, as new posters cover up the old: on poles, walls, and almost anywhere they might be seen by passing eyes. A walk down Commercial Drive one day can reveal a nuanced and subtly different streetscape than the same one seen only a few days earlier.

While there is something wonderfully democratic, creative, fluid and entrepreneurial about postering, it is also hard to deny the fact that street postering is chaotic, messy, and often illegal (in a regulatory sense). For Vancouver, a city that has strived to brand itself as the model of a clean, orderly and livable city, the unpredictability and untidiness of postering is counterintuitive to its ordered tendencies. In consideration of the “unsightly appearance that posters give city streets and the cost to taxpayers for poster removal”, the City has gone to some great measures to regulate posters. Most interesting is the manner in which postering is effectively characterized as a detriment to the appearance of the city.

According to Vancouver’s Street & Traffic Bylaw No. 2849, you can’t paint, paste, stick or glue anything on any street, sidewalk, boulevard, median, lamp post, or any other public space in Vancouver, unless you are within the guidelines set forth by the City Engineer. A detailed description of postering regulations is provided in section 85A of the Bylaw (http://vancouver.ca/bylaws/2849c.pdf).

Street posters are encouraged and welcomed as long as legitimate media for installing posters are used. To facilitate postering, the City of Vancouver provides official poster cylinders. These cylinders are located on street light standards throughout Vancouver. Most anyone that has walked around one of Vancouver’s busy commercial streets has encountered a cylinder. The poster cylinders measure roughly 4 feet in height and appear as natural extensions of the light standards they rest on. A once inch thick orange strip at the top and bottom of the cylinder demarcates the permitted poster space.

A list of poster cylinder locations can be accessed via the city website. A map of poster locations culled for the City of Vancouver’s VanMap is also provided below.

The geography of the poster cylinders is not entirely surprising. Broadway (between Alma and Commercial Drive), Main Street, Commercial Drive, and a number of streets on the Downtown peninsula are where the cylinders are concentrated. Vancouver’s “high streets” and activity centers serve as the principle locations. These are locations that are easily visible, and benefit from tons of pedestrian traffic.

None of this is to say that posters don’t exist off of the sanctioned cylinders. Posters can still be found on poles, traffic control boxes, benches, abandoned businesses, and construction sites on a regular basis. It is these “unsanctioned” locations that pose a problem for many people. The City of Vancouver ultimately reserves the right to take down any offending posters and further reprimand or fine any groups or individuals implicated in putting the posters up.

Vancouver communities also have a number of volunteer citizens that donate their time to help keep the city clean and free of clutter. In fact, many neighbourhoods are home to individuals that will go around and systematically remove posters that are posted up illegally. These aware citizens play an interesting role in the perpetual dance of street postering, showcasing the dynamic ways in which public spaces are valued and ultimately maintained.

For its part, the City of Vancouver removes posters from the sanctioned poster cylinders at the beginning of every week (Tuesdays). This is a standard practice and is noted directly on the cylinders. The intent is to prevent unwanted layers and build up. Usually as quickly as posters are taken down, the cylinders are covered right back up. It is a rare sight to see a bare cylinder, unless perhaps the cylinder is located in a less than desirable location. Regardless of where posters go up (be it on the cylinders or elsewhere), if someone wants to keep them up, and expect to have their posters seen, they need to be on their game.

The politics and emergent economies of postering in Vancouver can be much more complex than might initially appear. With a limited number of “legal” poster spaces available, poster cylinders are sought after real estate in their own right. As anyone that has tried to put up a poster on one of these cylinders will tell you, most posters are lucky to last a day before being torn down or covered, sometimes literally within a few hours of going up.

While it might be a touchy subject to broach, there is in effect a small poster monopoly at work in Vancouver. Quite simply, there are people who get paid to put up posters (on the cylinders and other strategic locations) and ensure that they remain seen. Some in the postering community estimate that upwards of 90% of the posters you actually see are put up by a small group of people promoting concerts, club nights or protests. All is fair in love and war and, in Vancouver, postering is a strangely cut-throat business.

Adding further to the mix has been the emergence of glossy posters advertising condo developments on a number of the poster cylinders throughout the city. The commodification of space, gentrification, and subversion of grassroots ideals have, thus, come into plain view. It is hard what to make of this new phenomenon, but there is something that can feel uneasy. The glossy ads/posters ultimately speak to some subtle and other not-so-subtle truths about the public sphere and the way space is perceived, used, managed and sold. As the 2010 Olympics approach, Vancouver will be on image overdrive as the world’s gaze sets on the city. It is hard not to imagine crackdowns on illegal posters, and a general commercialization of permitted ones.

Postering, at its core, is culture without permission. The lack of formality and established order are what give street posters a unique kind of validity. There are layers upon layers of significance both in the act of postering and the posters themselves that speaks to the need for negotiating between order and disorder. Posters themselves are not an end. What is more important is that such negotiations happen.

Mark Pickersgill is a Vancouver-based city planner and writer. He is music obsessive and an appreciator of fine cheese.