STOP: Relax. Or dream. Or believe. You are powerful and you are loved. All we have is now. UR OK. Breathe.
These are the instructions and affirmations blaring forth from what appear, at first glance, to be new street signs all over Toronto's Distillery District.
Shaped like stop signs, one-way signs, do not enter signs and even highway marker signs, the posted beacons are meant not to direct any sort of traffic, but to raise spirits and remind those who see them to chill out. Laugh. Feel something positive.
One particularly powerful post takes the form of several "no parking" signs stacked atop one another, but instead of forbidding parking, they tell viewers that:
"If there is to be peace in the nations, there must be peace in the cities. If there is to be peace in the cities, there must be peace between neighbours. If there is to be peace in the home, there must be peace in the heart."
The newly-installed fakeout signs are the work of Los Angeles-based experimental artist Scott Froschauer, whose exhibition 'The Word on the Street' will be on display in the Distillery District until October.
It marks the artist's largest installation ever outside the U.S.
"I keep thinking about how we are all struggling to relate to truth. My artwork has been about digging into my struggles and finding the moments I need direction," wrote Froschauer when announcing the Toronto installation on Instagram.
"It's about a reminder that I have the ability to tell myself the same assurances that I give to others. My work is about finding that authentic voice that I can speak to myself with," he continued.
"We have the truth inside us, it's just not easy to find it sometimes in all the rubble."
by Lauren O'Neil via blogTO
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