Clearly tarps cover things up. That is their primary use. More interesting is the range of secondary uses and the propriety that attaches to these uses. Other Nanaimo neighbourhoods use tarps, but farther down the economic scale tarps cover piles of belongings stored on balconies, or old cars in the front yard. The tarps in these pictures are in what would be considered a ‘nice’ neighbourhood where people look after their gardens, protect their campers, store their firewood. In such a neighbourhood, piles of leaves, pipes, rocks would be considered unsightly — projects started and not finished – so they are covered by a tarp. This indicates a project in process, rather than a pile of left over rocks out in the rain. Things leak. A tarp can cover a roof, or a crumbling chimney, or a 1956 Nash: this is to be expected. How the tarp is fixed is critical. It must be battened down, lashed securely and tidily, kept from flapping in wild abandon. Tarps are not last resort solutions here, they are purposefully and carefully applied, indicating that the problem will be addressed in better weather, or in a better year, or in a better life, but it will be addressed. Also, this is a neighbourhood without front fences and often with back yards open to an alley. Piles of manure dropped off in the spring for the garden will walk if not covered up. If the tarp is too small for the pile, it can be affixed to the side, indicating that this pile, which is where visiting shovels would normally liberate some of the soil, belongs to someone even although it is clearly sitting on someone’s property. This ineffectual, too- small tarp is respected. It occurs in other places: a car in an unsupervised parking lot next to the blank wall of an apartment building is safer with a tarp on it than without. Why a Boler, with no seams on the roof, has a tarp on it is not about rain or weather; it is about surveillance. This Boler is watched, looked after.
tarpology
material culture | tarps by stephanie white
signs masks covers ownership weather
signs of belonging
Tarps, the blue woven plastic kind with metal grommets and a light corded edge, are the most elemental kind of shelter, seen from tent cities in Haiti and Darfur to back yards. Made in China, they are a product so useful and so undemanding that they have almost become invisible. The tarps shown here are in a small four by six- block neighbourhood which includes the store that sells the tarps, in Nanaimo BC, a wet, often windy environment.
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On Site review 23 Small Things
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