 |
October 13, 2008 |
  |
Created and Maintained by: The Photoimaging Information Council |
|
|
Columns |
|
We all froze, straining to hear in the silent darkness. It's amazing how small noises can trigger fear when you are in the middle of an 89-year-old abandoned mental institution. Thump. There it was again, the same noise that nailed our feet to the floor a second ago. Suddenly, an eerie, dark shape came around the corner and whew... it was just another photographer. Shooting the abandoned and forgotten buildings of our society is not for the faint of heart, but can be tremendous fun and artistically rewarding. Searching through and documenting the detritus of years ago, never knowing what you might find – beauty in decay and abandonment; art in the rust, the peeling paint and the neglect. It is this point of view that permeates the work of the DK Photo Group (DKPG). It was when each of us became involved in photography in a serious way that we realized the power of the lens for documenting these locations and the experiences they offered. Exploring for your own sake is an interesting adventure, but being able to bring back the images to share with others, that developed a whole new artistic meaning. It was this feeling that brought the six of us together to form our photography group and keeps us exploring and photographing.  © 2006 Jay Morrison
We find that poking through decaying and dormant structures shows their once-kinetic nature and reveals something of the lives lived within. We want to show that the ephemeral nature of our existence is underscored by the historical social fabric that can be found in these environments. We want people to see that what was once entrenched in the everyday and the mundane is now resplendent, as though keeping a silent vigil. Sean Galbraith, a DKPG member, feels the same way. “All buildings have a story, a history, a life and a death. Industrial factories rust. Office buildings slowly crumble. Residential buildings are reclaimed by the elements. It is a rarity that these building evolutions are witnessed by those outside their walls.” So many of us living in large cities around the world never stop to think about our surroundings. We commute to work and back, cocoon in our houses and never see the forgotten places, never consider why they were built and who was involved. These structures are a part of our history, yet they are ignored by most of the population. Finding and photographing these locations is like being an urban archeologist. You always hope for the chance of finding a location that may have existed for more than a hundred years, which perhaps millions of people have walked past, but did not discover. “It is the realization that art is everywhere and confronts us daily in our mundane activities that mystifies, surprises and captivates me,” says Russell Brohier, DKPG photographer. “It is that we live in an artistic world and we sometimes or mostly do not even realize the beauty in our surroundings. Finding art in the most banal of things or events heightens our sensitivity and enriches our daily experiences.” It is that sentiment that drives us, always looking for that spot no one knows about, one that we can perhaps bring to the attention of the community after so many years. It is this goal of sharing that has been encouraging many people to begin bringing their passion into the open. Some of us have our photographs hanging in galleries, others have been on the radio and television – and the plethora of websites surely attests to the growing phenomenon. While many think of us merely as photographers with a fetish for the decayed, our hobby actually serves another very important purpose. Many times, the locations we investigate have been totally forgotten, with everything left in situ. This means that actual pieces of history are often still there, waiting to be found. One of us was involved in such a historical discovery, although without a happy ending. Most photographers conduct themselves according to a very strict moral code. This includes never breaking anything, not moving or taking anything from the site and certainly not adding to any graffiti already there. Our motto is much like that of the Sierra Club: "Take only pictures, leave only footprints."  © 2006 Laurin Jeffrey
It was this ethical consideration that led an investigator of an asylum east of Toronto to leave behind the WWI letter he found in one of the buildings. Because the building had been used as a hospital for returning WWI soldiers, and was, therefore, an important part of Canadian history, a few of us wanted to save at least some of it from the impending wrecking ball. Unfortunately, no sooner had inquiries been directed to the local council, the developer moved in and knocked everything down. That letter is now lost forever and we have all lost a piece of our history. Sometimes it seems like we are too busy building and creating the new to stop and see the history we are burying. Always happy to knock something down in the name of progress, so that some modern, gleaming building can take its place. Maybe it has to do with our short heritage, living in a city 212 years old, compared to European pedigrees of five times that, and eastwards into the thousands of years. According to Jay Morrison, another DKPG member: “Our city has a rich industrial history and many aspects of that history are crumbling around us as we continue to build condominiums and shopping complexes. I decided to turn my focus to documenting this industrial history before it is nothing but a memory.” He knows only too well what many of us feel: “Wandering around these derelict structures provides an indescribable sensation. Looking back through photos and realizing that [what] those buildings [stood for] are gone provides an intense level of satisfaction.” But there seems to be a revitalization currently going on; people are starting to take more of an interest in their city. Funding issues are becoming paramount as citizens are fighting for their share, to preserve their homes and surrounding areas. Initiatives such as the Green/Arts Barns project being undertaken by Artscape and the Evergreen Commons at the Don Valley Brick Works are wonderful examples of art preserving history. While many people are not that interested in history, it surrounds us. From some of the old buildings housing chic clothing shops on Queen West to Woofstock in the Distillery District, you cannot escape it. But how many of us actually stop to think about these structures, about where they came from and who built them? Sure, when the Tip Top Tailors building started being converted into high-end lofts, urbanites pretending to want to know more, acted like they knew about it all along. But how many really noticed it when it was spewing out suits? But many other wonderful structures in Toronto are being left to rot. Are they ignored because they are not popular, because they are in a "bad" area of town? Or is it that we have passed them by so many times that we don't even see them anymore? A great example is Walnut Hall, a name that would mean nothing to most of the city. If you drive along Jarvis or Shuter Streets, look to the northeast as you go through this intersection - there stands Walnut Hall, designed by John Tully, one of the more prestigious architects of old Toronto. He was one of four who submitted designs for the first Toronto city hall in 1844. He designed wings of the old Provincial Asylum at 999 Queen Street, Hughes Terrace on King Street – the list goes on. Picture Toronto more than 150 years ago: most of the area it now covers was Crown land and devoid of many buildings. Some of it was granted to William Jarvis (who gave his name to the street), who sold his lots along Shuter Street to city alderman John O'Donohoe. John Tully was hired to design the Georgian rowhouses, which were originally named O'Donohoe Row. It wasn't until the renovations made in the early 1900s that name changed to Walnut Hall.  © 2006 Matthew Merrett
Since then, it has been mostly downhill for this once stately housing block. The real decline began when it was converted into a rooming house in the 1940s, then into a city-owned hostel 10 years later. There was a brief flurry of hope when the RCMP purchased the property in 1970, theoretically to build their new headquarters. The only action they took was to board it up and leave it to the elements. A few years later, it was added to Toronto heritage properties, but even this new designation did nothing to stop the deterioration. It seemed to be on the verge of collapse – a sad end to such a fine structure. But, in the middle of the 1990s, Walnut Hall suddenly saw a little more action. A former city employee purchased the property and the land to the north of the building was covered with10 new houses. All fine and good, except the aging structure remained, still decaying. At the start of this decade, the degeneration inevitably took its toll and part of the building collapsed. Adjacent properties suffered flooding and other problems, possibly connected to the collapse. Right now, you can still see the faded “for sale” sign on the side of Walnut Hall, the sign that originally piqued my interest in the building. Even though it may not be the "nicest" area of Toronto, to be able to live in such an interesting and historic building had my attention. Alas, the sign is still there, years later, fading into obscurity, nary a Georgian townhouse in sight. We can only hope that, one day, this once proud housing complex can be restored to its past glory. Once again, its rooms might contain families, building their own histories. Either that or we will lose a little bit more of our city when the wrecking ball finally comes to collect its due. But these losses are our own fault. People can be so blind at times. We pass by history almost every day things and never notice what it is trying to say.  © 2006 Russel Brohier
It is people like DKPG artist Steve Jacobs who help make people more aware of what is around them. “With my camera I try to enlighten outsiders to the majesty of these moments in time. I try to offer an authentic and existential historical experience.” Having worked at the Royal Ontario Museum, he definitely understands the importance of recording history for those that follow. “With my background in archaeology, exploring modern ruins in search of evidence of daily life within the setting of the building comes almost as second nature. This is what I want to start to focus on with my photography; the evidence of the individual within the factory, hospital or house. It is these poignant artifacts that remind us that the buildings that surround us are far from eyesores, but monuments to those that came before us and helped build the cities that we now live in.” But for some there comes a more sudden turning point, a revelation of sorts. For me, it was a house my wife and I lived in a few years ago. It was a new development and there were all sorts of issues with the builder. As we started digging into the files at city hall, we found an obscure piece of municipal paper mentioning an old graveyard on or near the site. Now fearing that our homes had been built on top of the dead (cue Poltergeist), we dug further. In the end, it turns out that a house on the street behind us had the remains of an old family cemetery from the 1800s in their backyard. Five lonely markers stood under a huge old oak tree at the back of their lot. Joseph Black would have been amazed, surely, to find his family's final resting places still extant. While our fears subsided, this provoked in me an interest that is still running strong. There is history everywhere around us, literally under our noses. It was when I turned my camera towards this history, when I began to look at things differently, when I truly began to "see" the past all around me.  © 2006 Sean Galbraith
My commute home from work used to take me along Adelaide, a route I have driven more times than I care to remember. One day, stuck at a red light at Simcoe Street, I happened to look at the northeast corner and saw a sad old Tudor-style building. Boarded up and forgotten. What was this building? Who built it? Why is being left to rot? Known as Bishop's Block, it was built by John Bishop around 1830, part of a larger housing complex that reached from Simcoe to University Avenue. At the time, this area was one of the finest in the city and was the centre of a surge of development at the time. Little of this construction can still be seen today, unfortunately, as the area has been covered mainly in modern glass and steel. But Bishop’s Block remains. I soon learned that John Bishop was born near London England in the late 1700s, coming to Canada in 1816. He retired from his career as a butcher in 1833 and died at the then ripe old age of 75 on Christmas Day 1845. Between his job and erecting this structure, Bishop even managed to find time to be a member of the fire brigade. Within a few years, his building was listed as a boarding house, though the future held a bit more interest for Bishop's Block. Robert Jameson, then Upper Canada's Speaker of the House, arrived and moved in, sometime around 1833. Soon thereafter, Jameson was appointed Attorney General and then promoted to Vice-Chancellor. Eventually, he moved into a house at Front and Spadina (where the Globe and Mail building now stands). In 1837, Jameson's wife left him and returned to England, whereupon he moved back into the fashionable rooms of the Block, living there until his death in 1854. There does not seem to be much more information on this building until the 1970s, when the lower floor was turned into the Pretzel Bell Tavern. Although we have little information as to why and when this establishment closed its doors, the upper floors have obviously been boarded up and abandoned for decades. Designated a heritage building in 1978, it sits as an island in a sea of asphalt, slowing crumbling away. Mathew Merret, also a DKPG member, nicely sums up the driving force behind the group’s work. “The entire premise behind my photography is to bring an unusual perspective and awareness to things that most people wouldn't give a second glance to. With photography, I capture light and form in a state of decay, which can be found in the most unusual places. “Exposing the obscure and resurrecting life where it once existed is my photographic passion. By carefully visualizing my surroundings as they once were and are today, past and present are captured as one.” Why don’t more people feel the same way, why do we let our history moulder away? Why are we not doing more to save the countless historical buildings now turning to dust? If we don't do something, there’s no doubt that they will eventually replaces by faceless condo buildings or parking lots and we will lose another little piece of our heritage.  © 2006 Steve Jacobs
The DK Photo Group held their first exhibition as part of the Contact Toronto Photography Festival in May 2006. For further information and images:
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
© 2002 - 2008 Take Great Pictures |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
