NY #4: Acceptable Blockages on Tour

Since about 2010 I've taken photos of improvised arrangements of street furniture that I call Acceptable Blockages. I think of the areas they delineate as modern magic circles or sacred spaces. I guess they also say a lot about how we communicate with each other in cities, and how communication works as much through habituation and assumption as it does through meaning and understanding.

I did a lecture about it in 2011 which you can read here.

I still take plenty of photos. I have a collection of around 200.

In New York, a bit like American English, the vernacular is a bit different from the UK, but not so much that you don't recognise the meaning of the language.