Given that there are over 2.5 million people living within Toronto’s borders, any attempt to try and get an accurate picture of exactly what goes on day to day in our city seems complicated, if not impossible. There are too many moments, in too many lives to compile, and how we hope to understand anything when it all comes together is a mystery anyway. In the final analysis too much information slips between the gaps, and our ideas get fuzzy with too many facts.
Online, in the newspapers, on the bus and at the coffee shop, every day we face a vast unceasing babble from streets, from radios, TVs and social networks, as well as the people around us, yet somehow we are expected to understand how it it all fits together again to explain the places where we live. Facts, figures, arguments and words are not always adequate for this challenge. Perhaps there is a better way to glean something from all the noise? What if we don’t need to know what someone is thinking, to get an idea of what is going through their mind?
“…On Thursday, March 6, at exactly 5:47 p.m., Tweet or Instagram your snapshots of life in the city use hashtag #TOminute to be included in a featured photo gallery on thegridto.com … please include a description of what’s happening in the pic, and thank you in advance for participating… “
Enter photography. What better way to pass on a sense of place or identity, than a simple picture? No words, nor need for explanations. In pictures, we are left to draw conclusions ourselves. Some trigger memories and take us back in time, others spark our curiosity and help us look at things from a different angle. Photographs capture and suspend moments in our lives, so we can have time to look at them again in new ways, as we share them with others.
All a photographer needs to do is point a camera, and click a button, right? It’s that simple. So, what if everyone in the city, at the same time, in the same minute, on the same day, snaps a picture of anything they find important enough to share. What would the result look like? The least we can hope for is an oddly intriguing assortment of eclectic people, places, and things. Yet with any luck, something more akin to a regional collective unconscious may emerge.
Yup, there’s nothing like a good old fashioned photography project to get everyone in the mood for sharing and learning about where they live. I guess that’s why our friends down at the GRID this week are doing just that, asking to see Toronto from a “street-level” perspective.
For more information visit:
http://www.thegridto.com/city/local-news/show-us-your-tominute/
