Text And The City

See what they did there?
This is an assignment we were set especially for the blog. We had to go out in small groups (I was with Helen and Ephraim) and take photos of text we felt summed up the essence of Cardiff. We decided that rather than just taking three photographs, we would take quite a few and then could all decide individually which ones we wanted to use.
These are the three I decided to use, plus a little bit about how I feel it sums up the essence of Cardiff:



This bit of text appears above the main entrance to Cardiff Central train station and has the word 'Welcome' written in both English and Welsh. I felt that this was relevant to what I was doing as it shows that the Welsh value and are proud of having their own language. A survey taken in 2001 found that just 11% of the population of Cardiff can speak Welsh, but despite this almost all signs in Cardiff have both Welsh and English text on them. I feel this sums up the essence of Cardiff as it shows that although there aren't many people in Cardiff who can speak Welsh, they are still proud to have their own national language and value those who can speak it.




This picture is of a bridge near the Grangetown area of Cardiff and is one of several bridges around the city sporting the Brains Beer monicker and a catchy line to go with it. This particular bridge says "It's Brains you want!". Cardiff is the only city that has these bridges, and when I think of something that only Cardiff has, I often think of these. It is this sense of being unique that makes me think they capture the essence of Cardiff, as Cardiff is a capital city, but is nothing like other capital cities in Britain. The inner sleeve of the album 'Fuzzy Logic' by eccentric Welsh band Super Furry Animals features a photograph of the band stood in front of this exact bridge.




This photograph of a Chinese supermarket is the final picture I have decided to use for this assignment. There are several of these such supermarkets on the same street as this one all selling foods aimed specifically at certain cultures; there are several stores specialising in Halal meat, others for specifically Chinese foods and many more. The fact that there are several of each type of store shows that there is a market for these stores and higlights the diverse range of people living in Cardiff.