Dale Sylvae

Sonder: The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.

Opia: The ambiguous intensity of Looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.

Sisterhood Watch, 2015

I made this piece for a group show out of Whippersnapper Gallery in Toronto, ON called “The Street Talk Project”. The Street Talk Project is a public art intervention and gallery exhibition that addresses how women navigate the city, and the socialized sexism that governs bodies on a day-to-day basis. Using humour and subversive advertising, The Street Talk Project will bring attention to the ways in which public space is navigated differently by different bodies; address how sexism is felt viscerally on a day-to-day basis; promote solidarity for the safety of women and trans bodies; and further the belief that we are all responsible for making public spaces accessible and welcoming for all bodies.

My sign, and the 6 others, are installed on telephone poles around Kensington Market, as well as on display in Whippersnapper Gallery from today (April 16th) until the 26th. I so wish I could be there for the opening tonight, but alas, I am in Halifax. But if any of you, lovely followers, are in the area for the next 10 days, check it out, see the signs, and think about how you can help make the streets a safer place wherever you walk.

Charlie foxtrot