Plateau

Day 352 on a photoshoot with Pierre Dalpé, 95%


Day 352 on a photo shoot with Pierre Dalpé at the Botanical Gardens and the Musée Dufresne on Sherbrooke. The shoot was really fun- thanks Pierre!

After the photo shoot, I assured Pierre I would be fine getting a cab in spite of the rain.
I was wrong.
5 cabs passed me by, despite my waiting at a gas station where there was a drive-thru Tim Horton’s. A cab actually turned into the gas station and slowed down. As I ran to get in the car, he waved me off and sped away. I am assuming that my outfit discouraged these drivers to pick me up.

Finally, a taxi stopped for me. I got dropped off at the SAQ on St Denis on the Plateau to pick up some wine to take to a friend’s house for an inside bbq because of the rain. My arms were full with a box of 4 bottles, and I walked west on Duluth. A car full of women started talking to me, making kissing noises and saying, “Oh ma belle! Ma belle!” I smiled, winked, and made that clicking noise you make when you are being cheesy. I also kept walking. They started laughing louder and said a few more mean things in French, making fun of my ass.

95%

Crossing St Denis for a quick Performing Proximity


Crossing St Denis for a quick Proximity Performance. I had to change after class because it’s getting a bit chilly. Also, I obviously need to walk around the Plateau on a Friday night in this outfit.

Day 317 with Michele Clarke, 100%

The selfie
This is Michele Clarke and I in a selfie at the end of our day together. Michele is a photographer who is interested in vulnerability and the seams of emotional discomfort. I met her through 52 Pick Up, a video-a-week project that I created and manage where she is currently in week 34. I finally met Michele in person about a month ago at the Edgy Women Festival and later at a mutual friend’s super fun birthday party where the birthday celebrator got into an over-guests/furniture wrestling match with an MMA fighter with feet headlocks and everything as a kind of birthday present.

It was pretty awesome.

At the party, Michele and I got to talking about vulnerability in relationship to this project and my daily wearing of animal print. She had noticed that there was no documentation of people around me or me in public settings on this site representing the project aside from selfies, portraits, and performing proximity images. I talked about my definite interest in getting these types of images, but what I saw as difficulty in taking them as I did not want to draw more attention to myself with a visible photographer. I mentioned that I had considered a Sophie Calle approach of hiring a detective to follow me around, but with my penchant for paranoia, decided that this was not the best idea. Michele offered great insights into my relationship with performing in public spaces and vulnerability which I am grateful for, pointing me to Haley Morris Cafiero’s work, and offered to come back to Montreal and follow me around with a telephoto lens in the hopes of capturing public interactions.

Below is one of the images she took from a two-hour walk today around the Plateau which is fairly representative of the looks and stares I got during this time and through which, Michele was fairly invisible. She was usually across the street and people were not noticeably aware of her, but were of me. As you may or may not be aware, this outfit is pretty reflective of what I have been wearing daily since June 1st, 2012.

I encountered a family in which a girl who was about 7 wore a leopard print coat and stroked it as she stared at me when I passed. I said hello to the family and I think she wanted to say something, but she just kept rubbing her coat. Another girl with her mother exclaimed “C’est beau, c’est beau, c’est beau!” over and over again to me which frankly, was awesome. I said “bonjour.”

I was called “la Gazelle” as I passed a couple (not sure what that is about- this is just the wrong animal, but I’ll take it for my research), and there were a handful of snorts by passersby (usually women). One woman who was by herself said “Calis” under her breath as she passed. The rest of the commentators that I heard were in couples or groups. I got growled at by a middle-aged man in the park who was with his female friends- it was playful and not aggressive, and 2 separate women laughed with their group as I walked by on St. Laurent Blvd.

Obviously, I’m going to have to start wearing a wire.

The old man

Performing Proximity Cougar follow

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This was November 2nd (Day 155) where I got off the metro at the St. Laurent stop and followed this woman out the exit, up the escalator, and out the door. I took a series of stills with my iPhone and just got to making this video animation today. Performing proximity looks and feels fairly predatory here.

Day 175 in my Captain Caveman vest, 100%

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Day 175 in my Captain Caveman (you must remember Captain Caveman– like Scooby Doo, only a caveman with Charlie’s Angels-like girl teenagers) vest featuring tiger stripes. Here I am on my way home from the La Centrale General Assembly, taking my picture, under a street light. Just as I was putting the phone down (camera in phone), a woman passed by and I screamed, startled. She screamed too, and we both laughed at 10:30 at night on the Plateau in Montreal, 100%

Day 156 giving it all I got, 95%

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Day 156 giving it all I got in leopard on leopard on tiger. Hipsters love this jacket, regular people, not so much. 2 people said, “Caliss” on Mont Royal today as I walked by. The coat check girl at the Royal Phoenix said it was the best jacket she saw all night last night and the person working the door said I looked great which makes that a tie, 95%

Day 149 cougar street walk, 98%

Cougar Walk, Day 149
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Cougar walk down the street on the Plateau. I’m sporting that cougar fun-fur vest I got way back in May with full-on leopard pants and Cougarliscious poster shirt, 98%