I love taking pictures of street art. I collected graffiti and street art in France, South-East Asia, Australia and China.
Ottawa isn’t a city with a lot of street art, except on Prince of Wales Bridge. Most opinions are expressed on posters scattered across the city, stapled on wooden poles or taped to utility poles, despite the “No Postering” signs in effect. Whenever I wait at the red light, my eyes wander and I read them. Most are fairly easy to understand and promote language classes, holiday destinations or yoga class deals. But every once in a while, I stumble upon cryptic messages.
I understand the “9/11 — examine the evidence” signs, put up by some conspiracy theory groups. The “Judgment Day” one was left over by Harold Camping’s believers who, once again, weren’t actually raptured on Doomsday. The troll face is an image used to designate trolling of some form on the Internet.
But how about the “Rudolph Terror 9/11” signs? A reference to Rudolph Giuliani? Or am I over-interpreting? And how about the weird “Have You Seen Him” sign? The number listed to report the person is “1-800-TORCHWOOD”!
Well, I guess it doesn’t matter. These signs keep us entertained while waiting for the green light to cross the road or when waiting for someone. They are a fun way to take the pulse of the population and keep up with current issues and memes.
Hi Zhu,
Thats onteresting that you don’t have as many tags in Ottawa. Why do you think that is so? I think having to chose between a poster and a tag, I would chose a poster because it will eventualy disentegrate. Tags are herder to get rid of!
I’m not sure! Probably because it’s the capital, everything is very clean and neat here. People seem to like posters better.
Very intriguing… I googled Torchwood and it’s a BBC series, something to do with extraterrestrials, etc. Still I don’t see the point of th poster, but then I don’t see the point of many of the other posters. Maybe they are just having a laugh at the thought of people pondering the poster. If so, they must be delighted with your post 😉
Ah, I tried to Google it but couldn’t find anything relevant. Makes more sense… kind of 🙂 I hope they read this post then!
I thought you might have googled it. It probably came up in my search because I’m in Ireland.
Yeah, it still doesn’t make much more sense, but at least it’s based on something!
I had no idea! And I googled it but couldn’t find anything relevant.
these are strange posters – I find the one about “have you seen him?” particularly scary! I mean, the man himself already looks awkward… and then a telephone number that ends with the word “torchwood”? wow. that guy must have done something terrible!
There’s not much street art in the french part of Switzerland (I think Zurich maz have some more – it has an expanded alternative scene, anyways!).
The have you seen him puzzled me! These posters do exist for actual missing people but this one is obviously some kind of joke I don’t get!
That’s Dr. Who 🙂
This will help better http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who
<3 the troll face and Dr. Who poster!
Ah, thank you for solving the mystery! Great movie culture 😉
all we get where I am from are anti abortion posters, sometimes I feel like im in the sheeple capital of the world
Aw, that’s too bad… I like street art, it gives cities a soul!
We do not get almost any posters here in Saint John, it is too small and anybody who would do that would be easily identified. One of the things I miss about living in a bigger city, a little bit of civilian disorder. 🙂
The one about Dr. Who (the missing one) is pretty cool. I do not watch that series but a friend of mine is a big fan and he introduced me to it.
I had no idea it was a Doctor Who reference! I’ve never watched the series, but I’ve heard of it.
I know what you mean… a bit of civilian disorder like you say is needed sometimes 😉
My neo-nazi anti-foreigners extreme-right-wings poster are much much funnier … I wish they would disappear but they are pretty persistant in my neighbourhood!
Argh! These can be funny because they are so outrageous but still… I like mine better 😉
Good old Tulsa doesn’t have too many signs like that. Ourloss.
Too bad! Maybe you could start a trend? 😉
Back when Bush jr. was in power, I saw graffiti on a stop sign. It said STOP and then directly underneath it BUSH. Somewhat like the Harper signs I guess.
What is that last picture?
I just saw the same graffiti in Toronto, except it was with Harper 😉
The last one is just a smoking smiley face, spotted under the MacKenzie King Bridge.
I’ve never heard of a graffiti collection before but I love it! I thought there would have been more political graffiti in Ottawa, but I guess Canada in general is not really known for our graffiti 🙂
Come to think of it, you’re right, there aren’t a lot of purely political graffiti in Ottawa. Canadians are too polite for that? 😉
Interesting… But I must say that Montreal has some of the best graffiti I’ve ever seen. Ever Toronto doesn’t come close, which is probably a good thing considering graffiti are usually in “bad neighbourhoods”.
No graffiti in Ottawa?
Almost none, just crazy posters!
I am a sucker for these, some are quite witty. Genius people!
Toronto has great signs too!
Greeting from Brazil!
Im gong to start my sponsorship process next year, and Ive been reading your blog. Had to stop to talk about the “Have you seen him” poster with the Torchwood number. Its a reference to a British TV show (pretty interesting, btw) called Dr. Who.
Bom dia Luzia!
Thank you for the info, I didn’t know! I’m not too familiar with Dr. Who 😉
Best of luck with the sponsorship process, I hope you will find all he info you need here.