A riot in a shopping cart: the race that inspired an artist

Murray Siple grew up in an outdoorsy town in Canada surrounded by rugged hills and timberlands. Sport, danger, and risk-taking were part of his life from the beginning, be it extreme sports like snowboarding or skipping school to explore logging towns on dirt bikes. While Murray was in art school he started filming extreme sports like snowboarding which ended up taking him all over the world. Filming put him in many extreme, risky situations; he was in an avalanche, a helicopter crash, and had to be resuscitated after drowning. One night he got into a car with a drunk driver and was in a serious car crash. Murray was paralysed and had to rethink his life going forward. He poured his feelings into new art pieces and found fresh perspectives on the world. One night he heard someone going through his recycling bin; it turned out to be a homeless man looking for bottles to exchange for money. Murray discovered that he was part of a group of men who race shopping carts down the steep hills of North Vancouver at high speed. Suddenly Murray had a whole new group of risk-taking outsiders to film and his injury saw him welcomed into the community with open arms.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Producer: Rachel Oakes, Julian Siddle

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707

(Photo description: A black and white photo of two men racing shopping carts on a hilly road in Vancouver edged by telegraph poles and forests. A tree-covered mountain looms in the background. The bearded man in the foreground has a trolley full of bottles and is crouched over the trolley at full speed, smiling. The other man is out of focus some way behind. This is a still from the film Carts of Darkness directed by Murray Siple. Credit: Scott Pommier)