In Focus: In Between

Images and Statement by Rick Forgo

Vacant lots, abandoned fields, fenced off rights of way, and so on, in the context of the urban environment. I find these landscapes fascinating, their boundaries defined by urban structure, yet remaining wild and out of context. In cities everything has a carefully defined purpose framed by zoning, bylaws, and property ownership. These in-between areas however, come as a small exception as though they may have a designated purpose they sit fallow.

In the photographs I’ve taken of such areas I tend to be deliberatley surreal in my portrayal and colour treatments. I’ve used long exposures, at night, to strip these areas of their context and compell you to look at them in a different way than you would when you walk by them during the day. The point isnít to portray something in any objective way, more to give view of the exceptional status of these small, mysterious areas of official unuse.

In some small way Iím also hoping that bringing attention to such things will encourage their use not as a commodified piece of land or building, but as a way to a sustainable future. Many of these areas are already in use by animals and humans for food, shelter, and recreation. The sad thing is that in our society such uses are often taboo, and those who lay claim to the property endeavour to prevent its use for any of the above activities through anti-squatting, camping, or vagrancy bylaws.

The point is that these areas are open to interpretation. They remain pallettes for us to paint a new future upon, to think of new ways of interpreting urban space that give priority to those who need it most, not those with the most money.

By portraying abandoned and vacant areas in the midst of a major population centre, I currently want to bring a few things to attention:

1) The potential that these unused areas hold for the poor and abused that live here.

2) The potential these areas hold for the local, sustainable production of food in order for us to become closer to the land that sustains us while developing food systems that do not rely on mass importation of goods and exploitation of foreign land and labour.

3) The potential these areas hold for the local, sustainable production of food in order for us to wean our society off of the harmful bioengineered, genetically modified, chemically dependant, foods that make up a huge portion of our diet.

4) By growing more food locally we bring less harm to the world in our name: The monocrop plantations that mass agriculture firms use to feed us are harmful to ecosystems and our living environment and are in practice less effective than small scale sustainable multiple crop techniques such as those described by the permaculture movement.

[View with PicLens]

Rick Forgo is a recent Okanagan emigre who now observes through his lens city life in Vancouver. He is currently concerned with studying the sustainability of urban living. You can see more of his photos on his blog.