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Defying the established street grid, Kingsway cuts a slash across the city that extends from Vancouver in the north to the former British Columbia capital, New Westminster, in the south. Walking the length of the thoroughfare is similar to walking in the aftermath of a giant, earth moving, machine that's chosen the path of least resistance, leaving a trail of truncated and trapezoid shaped buildings in it's wake. Since it's origins as a foot path in the 19th century, people have been drawn in and pushed out of Kingsway's slipstream. Today, commuters, mechanics, working girls, and newcomers to Canada call the street home, a once necessary and crucial connection, Kingsway seems to be an anachronism within a city that continually promotes itself as a world leisure destination.

​When I first arrived in Vancouver 2010 it was easy to dismiss Kingsway as an unsightly street lined with strip malls, discount bins and used car lots whose only purpose was to get motorists from point A to point B. After renting an apartment, blocks away from it's beginning (or end depending on where you reside) and researching it's historical significance, I realized that Kingsway warranted a more thorough investigation, one that paid tribute to it's origins and contemplated it's place in present-day Vancouver.

​Inspired by images culled from the City of Vancouver Archives, this project is meant as a contemporary photographic survey of Vancouver's longest road constituting the backbone of the city. By walking the full length of Kingsway, I intend to utilize the street in it's original form and experience it in the same way one would view Edward Ruscha's Every Building on the Sunset Strip, as a seamless series of interconnected buildings, neighbourhoods and histories.

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