“The city is a place of litter and memento. It is an archival site, where everything from bus tickets to newspapers to discarded toys is given a second chance, is replayed in a second time. Each object on the street is a tiny flash of the past and the present, both a memory and a prediction, a sign of things that have gone and things that are yet to come. It is not only the objects themselves that persist in the city, but the way they become incorporated into the language of the city: the way that street signs and building facades and graffiti speak in the voices of past generations. The city is a kind of memory machine, where even the most trivial objects are remembered and preserved, not because they have any inherent value, but because they are part of the city’s collective history. The city is a kind of trash heap, where the discarded and the forgotten are transformed into something new and valuable, where the past is constantly being repurposed and reimagined.” (Susan Stewart, On Longing, 1984.)