this beautiful man is in this picture because the sun was going down –which meant to avoid getting glare I had to take the photograph on an angle which meant the man sitting on the bench would be in the photo. before taking the shot I asked the man if he was o.k. being in the picture. he said, “sure; it makes no difference to me, I’m not wanted by the cops.”
left at: one lot east of 4677 Notre Dame, corner of Courcelle.
october/2007
do you think my paranoia is showing?
left at: old C.N. Station on Second, North Bay, Ontario.
september/2007
in north bay they have an anti-staple by-law. they also have people who take their political favorites very seriously. after I had finished taking this photo a woman drove up in a car and demanded I remove “that sign” right away. she told me I was on private property and so I asked if she was the owner. she replied yes, but I didn’t believe her because of the way her nose twitched.
september/2007
where I am is not who I am is my gut response to how I sometimes feel perceived while holding my cardboard dream on the street. which got me to thinking how I will often conflate a person’s surrounding with who I think they are, and how certain places seem to “mark” a person… like a prison, or a homeless shelter, or a mental health institution, in a shameful or negative way. and yet I know the “whatever it is that makes us who we are” is often in stark contrast to where we find ourselves. people are all different, and we carry a whole history within us, –each of us came from somewhere before we arrived where we are now.
and I can’t figure out this relation between where and who we are… places mark us, define how we are perceived, how we respond to the world around us. but we are passing through, not permanent residents in any kind of fixed environment, and yet, where I find myself does impact me and how I relate to the world. life is so strange…
this url below is a link to the inmates radio at bordeaux prison. it is a good place to start thinking about the relation between place and perception.
translated: Where I am is not who I am.
I was too chicken to go to the prison on my own, so jean-pierre from dare-dare came with me and took some photos. but actually it was o.k., the first place I stood a guard drove up in a truck, got out, and told me I couldn’t stand there. I asked if the sidewalk was o.k. and he affirmed it was. only one person stopped to talk, a man in a wheelchair who was propelling himself down the road. he asked if I was crazy. I replied, “why do you think I’m crazy?” he said only a crazy person would stand with a sign. he wanted to know what the sign meant, and I told him it meant where we are is not who we are. I said, “like you—you are in a wheelchair, but that is not who you are.” he said he didn’t understand and that he couldn’t talk any longer.
left at: Établissèment de detention de Montréal, Bordeaux Prison. 800 Gouin Boulevard, corner of Salaberry.
august/2007
felicity tayler is an artist and the author of the blog: pictorial propaganda (listed on the blogroll) which is definitely worth checking out.
August 19th, 2007 at 10:31 pm I suppose I would agree that it is more pleasant to see a message with some personal investment in it than the advertising messages that are plastered everywhere. Regarding enforcing the by-laws, I wonder where the fine line between “depositing” or “distributing” and littering lies? I am thinking of the dreams that you leave places with out actually attaching them to something. Is it in the intention? Is it in the formal qualities of the material? If you had just propped up the cardboard next to the poles without using twist ties would they consider it litter or signage? What about if you had just dropped it off at a private home between the hours of 7am and 9pm? I wonder if it is less expensive or more expensive to be fined for littering than distributing printed matter? I wonder if you would have had less of a problem at election time when there are lots of plastic candidate advertisements on every pole, are they exempt from this by-law?