The Hall of Forbidding Signage, an exhibit in the Museum of Urban Life, was a memorial of warning plaques, notices, and placards, screwed on every inch of its atrium. Although open-ended in content and form, the signs were identical in function: they all said, “don’t do X here.”
None coaxed. Each proclaimed.
Conventionally, the visual shorthand for caution was red, and with so many signs of that colour in sight, the interior resembled an oven. Visitors in passing looked roasted alive in its light. It wasn’t inadvertent. Subtly coloured lightbulbs accentuated the effect. The curators wanted us uncomfortable, recalling when our day-to-day wasn’t quite this way.
I smiled thinly at forbidden specifics. No smoking, spitting, or littering. No lying down, begging, or defecation. No alcohol, slapstick, or standing in the way.
I’d come in reminiscence, in the happy masochism of nostalgia. Growing up, I’d watched the streets get bossier and presumptive, then infantilising, cruel. Globally, signs of this kind proliferated in cities, and each by its existence offered insight into the worries and concerns of its authorities. Don’t feed the animals suggests fear of vermin, but don’t feed, chase, or beat fear of people. A sign absent but implied was: no assumptions. Hadn’t the public – gorgeously multi-headed, but weren’t we volatile, a monster – a composite of backdrops, each stressing variable customs for appropriate conduct, and the rules and guidelines of politeness? That explained the enraging requirement, I thought, for:
Don’t forcibly take photos with foreign guests, don’t sneeze before others, don’t occupy public facilities for long.
Such a warning, scolding like an embarrassed parent, implied to me a fearful need for finer-grained, tightening, control. I withered but grew wistful with each visit. As the years passed, the atrium burned redder, hotter. But from the start it was very, very long.
