3 Neighbourhoods
Mapping in motion, blurring boundaries
3 Neighbourhoods
Mapping in motion, blurring boundaries
I was interested in exploring three distinct neighbourhoods in downtown Toronto that, for numerous reasons, have become familiar places over the past decade. Whether because they served as convenient commuting routes from home to work, or because they represented intriguing sites of cultural formation, three neighbourhoods were chosen as sites of focus: St. Jamestown, a densely populated centralized neighbourhood largely comprised of high-rise rental structures; the Danforth, a through-way avenue running east/west along the northernmost border to the dense Toronto downtown core, historically comprised of restaurants and locus of the city’s Greek community; and Spadina, a north/south throughway densely populated with restaurants, tea shops, and clothing stores, forming the larger of two quite vibrant Asian communities within the downtown city core. These three neighbourhoods have become very familiar over my time living in Toronto, and represent three very distinct urban spaces expressing vibrancy, culture, pace, pedestrian and automobile traffic, as well as identifiable soundscapes and visual/physical landscapes.
The images produced within this exercise whimsically attempt to dissolve the boundaries of the photograph, teasing the space lying beyond the limits imposed—in this instance—by the camera, not the photographer. The process in which the photographs were taken was not reliant upon setting up a shot for precision and framing. The process precluded decisions for what would be captured and what would be edited out. The photographs were made without the use of a viewfinder. The camera was triggered while in motion, with the intention that the process produce blurred images. Planning and precision were removed from the process, replaced with action and serendipity. The results of this process captured mood, colour, and expression rather than detail. While the process prevented the capture of any defining element or detail from the three neighbourhoods explored, three very distinct spatial moods and personalities surfaced from the sets of images when collected and placed side by side. The light and colours swirl into one another, coalescing in unnatural ways. I’ve often thought they are teasing the image edges, attempting to blur into the territory of the neighbouring image, blurring their way into peripheral contexts. This is the essence of the project: formulating new modes of mapping through processes integrating action and rapid-fire image-making—a kind of visual discursiveness articulated from image to image. This blurring of boundaries, taking place in both the physical world through new processes of making and through the formal positioning of images side by side, allowed for new insights to challenge foundational forms of mapping.
The final article can be read on Medium.