Reading excerpts from Species of Spaces and Other Pieces was inspiring. George Perec demonstrated a variety of methods of viewing and understanding space, which I found not only helped him see overlooked information under the everyday symbols of the street but also allowed him to incorporate his own and others’ feelings into what he saw, extracting stories, which encouraged me to try his methodology in this brief.
“Obviously, you could start an orchestra, or put on street theatre. Bring the neighbourhood alive, as they say. Weld the people of a street or a group of streets together by something more than a mere connivance: by making demands on them, making them fight.”
George Perec, Species of Spaces and Other Pieces
This is what Perec states when discussing what makes a neighbourhood alive. It sounds like a high requirement for one’s charisma and activeness, and probably not everybody is comfortable about engaging themselves in their neighbourhood in such a way. But there’s no denying that the intention to incorporate individual contributions into the community is inspiring and exciting.
I recently moved to Seven Sisters’ Road near Finsbury Park, there I randomly picked a local business: The Cafe G, as my subject of investigation, also hoping to start building my connection to this new community.
During the first week of my investigation, I spent several afternoons sitting in the cafe, looking and trying to document what I saw using Perec’s methods. This helped a lot because it changed some of my pre-judgments about this cafe. At first I thought it was an ‘efficient working place’ designed specifically for people with laptops to work. However, I noticed quite a few incoherences in its functionality. It seemed that it tried to create an atmosphere that was both productive and casual at the same time.
Accordingly, its visual appearance suggests a mash-up quality. Five wood grains appear to belong to completely different places. Over twenty different typographies everywhere, serif and sans all together. Playful rustic sugar jars on a modernist coffee table. Artificial plants and leather sofas. Cool greyish-blue walls and a neon sign of “THIS IS OUR HAPPY PLACE” on brutal bricks, in all caps.
Does the owner do it on purpose? Is this a rational business decision? Doesn’t branding theory teach us to target clear and keep consistency? Why do people come back to this cafe, with Starbucks and Costa along with cosy French cafes just a few minutes away?
The more I observed, the more questions about this place were raised. I kept reminding myself that I was not a business student, yet I still felt that the underlying stories behind this awkwardness could potentially reveal what makes this space special. That was an exciting moment. It seems my imitation of Perec’s observation methods has helped me reach a point: this cafe was starting to make me feel strange, which was a good start. As the investigation deepens, these methods helped more detailed inquiries to be formed.
Then I had a chance to talk with the manager of Cafe G, Katalina. It’s a bit too complicated to document the entire conversation, instead I’d like to quote just a few words of hers.
“The amenities that allow people to work are the previous owner’s legacy. We don’t want to get rid of them completely, but most of what you see is what we’ve added in.”
“I like having people sitting here and working. I enjoy seeing people working on their laptops while someone else meeting their friends.”
“We are applying for relevant licenses so people can throw office parties or friend gatherings here.”
“We brought this neon sign from another cafe G in south London. It’s basically my personal expectation for this place.”
Katalina, general manager of Cafe G Finsburys Park
The chat with Katalina reminded me of what I read about the neighbourhood in Perec’s book. Despite any possible profit driver behind this, I realized she’s actually doing something I once thought most people wouldn’t do: Weld the people of a street or a group of streets together by something more than a mere connivance: by making demands on them, making them fight.
In the next few days, I started to try to capture the traces of Katalina’s efforts in “OUR HAPPY PLACE”.
In the meantime, I’m also exploring the method of positioning myself, as an observer and as a creator, in my investigation. The Gleaners and I by Agnes Varda was a great reference. What’s most impressive about the documentary is the way Varda appears in the narrative. While recording the voices of all manner of gleaners, I also saw Varda presenting her actions, her choices, her responses, and even the tool she used to glean—her hands. These seemingly subjective tones give the work an extra sense of intimacy and authenticity. They surprisingly make the film less didactic, less biased, and more convincing and resonant. In all the footage about herself, none of the plots was designed or rehearsed, but her natural response. She just created a narrative with those ‘found footage’.
Therefore, I also tried to find a different method of recording to make my own subjective presence in the work. I gave up the intention of accurately recording information in the cafe: the shape of the tables, the colour of the floor, or the activity people are doing. Instead, I was looking for something that can’t be recorded other than me in that moment, in that place. Using textures and patterns extracted from the surrounding environment, I recorded the energy flows in the space over time, creating compositions based on my feelings about the space. Not only people, but also noises, lights, fragrances, colour, temperature… all led my pen to make a straight line or a curve, to paint a block orange or blue. I was hoping these compositions would communicate a more responsive and multi-layered Cafe G than precise mapping.