Filth City
Los angeles, California. Often times glamourized by Hollywood, has fallen short of said glamour. The truth is much of the city has succumb to a darker side of humanity.
Humans create an enormous amount of garbage. More than we know what to do with. I found myself exploring the inner cuts of Los Angeles city in search of the abundance of Street art available, and although I found what I was looking for, I also found that most of the areas "in the cut" are also used as illegal dumping grounds.
There is a comanality between street art and garbage and I don't mean Street art is "trash", in fact, far from it. What I mean is there is a sort of perceptual salience surounding garbage and street art.
Garbage sucks. It directly impacts public safety, public health, and the environment and we don't want to see our public streets littered with it. Yet many people, both residential folk and big buissness are illegally dumping waste on our streets. Garbage for obvious reasons is frowned upon, yet, we scoff it off and continue on about our day unless we are being directly effected by it. (Ain't we some stinkers)
Graffiti, Although, on the other side of the spectrum, is also percieved as a nuisance. According to an article by the Arizona State University, "graffiti is linked to reduced retail sales and declines in property value. — In addition, graffiti generates the perception of blight and heightens fear of gang activity."(https://popcenter.asu.edu/problems/graffiti). For this reason most folk will simply ignore the beauty and craftsmanship that is put into some of the street art that blankets the city.
Both street art and garbage are often overlooked. Both run with a bad reputation, but with this short article I hope to give a new perspective. Street art, because I want to celebrate the artist not the individuals lifestyle and garbage because maybe through art we can bring forth a movement to clean up our streets.
so I ask you, have I found beauty in filth?
