Wheat-Paste - the mixture of flour and water into an adhesive substance used for posting paper bills - may be one of the most prevalent yet transient materials at large within vancouver.
This work presents and abridged overview of its use and implementation within the past decade: the major users, public reactions, civic codes, how it has managed to curtail and enable differing kinds of promotion and street marketing, allows a psycho-geographical tracing of power factions within certain communities, and encapsulates a microcosm of the many tensions prevalent within Vancouver's current urban experience.
In order to present wheat-paste within the context and processes of Vancouver, I will draw upon my nine years or experience in utilizing it as a tool for street marketing, including years of working with activist groups, DIY concert promotion, operating a registered street marketing business, and subsequent time as a consultant, my work as a graffiti artist, as well as drawing upon knowledge of left-of-centre social organizing communities, contemporary and street art scenes, and local promotional markets.
In conclusion, I will maintain that it is possible to trace and detail the many tactical concerns, political considerations, manners of professionalization, draconian business tactics, and psycho-geographical boundaries that arise in correspondence to wheat-paste's use; furthermore, that by doing so is to present the matter and practice of wheat-pasting as a microcosm of the many unresolved, contradictory tensions present in Vancouver's current state of geographic, cultural, and political makeup. It is the aim of the author that by making this analogy apparent, it will open the practice to review, consideration, and, eventually, change.
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