Gabrielle Bendiner-Viani:

‘Official’ signs are those put up by a recognised organisation – perhaps a public one, like a city government, or a private one, such as a housing development or residents’ association. Notice which official entities are communicating with people in your neighbourhood. What do they say? Do their signs inform, enforce, keep you in, keep you out? These official signs can reveal something about who holds power, who owns land, whose interests are most protected. If there are lots of private ‘official’ signs, that might tell you about the private interests that hold sway. If many of them (or few of them) are local government signs, that might tell you about levels of civic investment. Also consider what kinds of names are used for the neighbourhood’s streets or public buildings. Where do these names come from?

A neighbourhood’s ‘unofficial’ signs are often as essential, powerful or respected as the sanctioned, official signs – just like the original street signs in Villa 31. Across my New York City neighbourhood of Washington Heights, many local businesses put signs in their windows (‘We love immigrants’) to send caring and non-commercial messages to the community. There are also postings for stray cats to adopt and school ‘open houses’ to visit. There are markers where people have died: a white bicycle for a cyclist hit by a car; a profusion of flowers where someone was killed by gun violence. See if you can find unofficial signs in your neighbourhood that you haven’t paid much attention to before. You might find them on the street, outside homes, in the windows of shops, on lampposts. What do all these signs suggest about your neighbourhood? How many languages are used? Do these signs add to the official ones, or edit them, or protest them? Do they support or contradict each other?