PROJECT CANADA
In choosing Canada, I chose myself.
Sparked by an inspirational social media post of a friend - a rather risqué yet endlessly fabulous rapper from New Jersey, no less - I launched into what for years I described as a 'personal renaissance' sometime in 2018.
This started as a project focussed on life and living it to the fullest, moving away from the shackles of people and places - characters and cities - of my life at that point. Personal contacts will recall my triumphant exit from a previous employer where I had been happy for years, decked out in mustard tones and 'triple-parked' prior to a one-way ticket to Montréal. Intended only as a stop gap before taking on gainful employment in Toronto, I soon felt the gravitational pull of the glorious centre of my universe. A school friend had shared an earlier social media post from 15 years prior, a prophecy proclaiming my heart's stake in Montréal and - true to seemingly earlier wishes - not long after, I found myself turning down opportunities in favour of a happiness and comfort not known to that point. Despite returning to scratch the itch of a 'senior' title in London (serendipitously on my own terms just in advance of an enforced return, courtesy of COVID-19), the aims of Project Canada remain in full flow, realised and refreshed.
It would be untrue to pretend this entire project hasn’t been - and still isn't - informed by an overemphasised self-confidence, with just a dash of self-indulgence. There is, of course, a certain romance that comes with packing up, heading off, and writing wistfully of the banality of life. Far from a race to the top I've chosen to take as many detours as I can, revelling once more in street photography and poetry to help tell my tale.
My first anthology, 'ce que je vois d'ici / what i see from here', is the first retrospective of this project. Written in French and English, its 84 pages weave a thread through the continued trajectory towards something unknown, but in all cases away from the known. It's images - glimpses of my heart's home, Montréal.