Diversity in Canary Wharf

Last week Anna and I made a field trip to Canary Wharf. A city within a city, an isolated cluster dedicated to generating profits, we felt it was the perfect destination to observe people that dedicate their lives to serving the capitalist dream. To quote the words of Canary Wharf Plc,

Canary Wharf is not just a place, it is a company.

Ideology aside, people are people everywhere, including in the shadows of imposing glass and steel towers. They are individuals with stories, backgrounds, fears, hopes, dreams. And haircuts and designer handbags! And this, of course, is the subject of our project...people.

In some ways it's very easy to sit down in a place like Canary Wharf (or Shoreditch, for that matter), let a stream of people walk by and decide on a label. "Bankers". "Creatives". "Wankers". "Slackers". And so on. Most of us feel the need to belong to a tribe, and the members of the other tribes represent a threat to the values that we uphold. Which is a shame, of course, letting our perception be narrowed down like that.

What we discovered at Canary Wharf was that there is a big difference between watching and seeing. From an initially overwhelming sense that people in this specific locale are a uniform group, we started seeing individuals, diversity, quirks and freaks. Granted, there was the uniform - neutral colours, as if to blend into the corporate background - and the handbags...that brown checkered Louis Vuitton one - maybe there's a small print in the employment contracts of these ladies that stipulates you must wear one to fit in? - but apart from that, it was just people...young ones excited about the opportunities ahead, older ones worn down by life, some elevated by their successes, others crushed by the impossibility of their dreams.

Until next time...X