My Summer Lair Chapter #320: What Type Of Street Sarcasm Do You Enjoy?
Just like in I Am Legend and other post-apocalyptic thrillers, here in Toronto in response to COVID we took to the streets. Writing on public walls, green rusty dumpsters and construction fences with “Sharp…ie” opinions about vaccines. (Some pro, some anti. There’s no such thing as consensus, anymore.)
Toronto photographer Henry VanderSpek shot a number of these urban emotional displays to assemble Urban Scrawl. His exhibition is part of the Contact Photography Festival.
Henry writes: “Urban Scrawl features images of messages that I encountered on the streets of Toronto over the past 12+ years. Some are about activism, some are humourous, some deeply heartfelt and many are inspirational.”
All of the Urban Scrawl photos are messages and cultural expressions written on Toronto’s streets. Like Summer Changed U on a notice a condo building is going up in that hood. Is it about the hood? It is about romance? What does it mean to you?
In Urban Scrawl there’s COVID reactions, poetic phrases, even anti-capitalism attitudes. And there’s love and there’s hope.
If you want to know what’s going on in Toronto, learn to see and read the streets like a crystal ball.
All of the standard emotions we go through living in a large metropolis.
(The streets are always talking but not everyone is listening.)
These graffiti writers are disrupting the corporate flow all around us from store windows (buy now!) to billboards (buy now!) and offering us an emotional respite (chill now!).
What’s the common expression everyone uses these days? Read The Room. More like…read the city. Your city. Urban Scrawl invites you to read and engage in your city.
In this My Summer Lair interview with photographer Henry VanderSpek: You’ll learn about his F Stop Philosophy, the lens through which he views the world, details on his Urban Scrawl exhibition and perhaps…insights on what it all says about Toronto. (And it all starts with…chili cheese fries. I mean how else would you start this conversation?)
I appreciate Henry and his photography skills. (I live a great life. I could fill out pages in a Gratitude Journal.)
Come to Urban Scrawl and meet Toronto.
Prepare to see a dynamic city (your city!) that is struggling, frustrated, hopeful, witty and full of love.
Henry VanderSpek @ W • T • F
Host Sammy Younan
Recorded: Wednesday, March 26, 2025 at 2:00 pm (EST)
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