Neil Kathol Visual Art

Shopping carts take on a different meaning when they are not on a supermarket site. There, they are usually carriers of vagrants’ possessions. This empty cart was down by the Bow River in the middle of the City of Calgary, on snow-covered ice, in December. At a spot where there is a last section of relatively undisturbed, and undeveloped land adjacent the river, a place I am familiar with. It is usual to find places where people have slept overnight there. I filled the cart with rocks, typical, riverine ones found there. The idea of a cart full of heavy rocks, hardly able to be pushed, as belonging to, or abandoned by, someone “living rough”, raised some questions about how they live. Either how they choose to live (possibly just sometimes); or, if they are robustly independent (as I understand many are) and if so, how they choose to find their own way and keep themselves alive through the winter months. Other interpretations of the quickly-made cart of rocks would, I think, also be possible.