THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

The ragpicker is the most provocative figure of human misery.  “Ragtag” <Lumpenproletarier> in a double sense: clothed with rags and occupied with rags.  “Here we have a man whose job it is to pick up the day’s rubbish in the capital.  He collects and catalogues everything that the great city has cast off, everything it has lost, and discarded, and broken. He goes through the archives of debauchery, and the jumbled array of refuse.  He makes a selection, an intelligent choice; like a miser hoarding treasure, he collects the garbage that will become objects of utility or pleasure when refurbished by Industrial magic”.

via Benjamin/Arcades