Photos

Prayer for a Mall

This is what we do best:

slow atrium breezes
concourses struck by their own
weather, tides and sudden storms

the slurry of lives on an escalator
sniper eyrie of mezzanine railings
shrill laughter and the smell of food and perfume.

I am a creature of malls;
this is my Tangier.

- Christopher Singh

Anyone who’s spent time in Toronto will know that this image is from the Eaton Centre shopping mall, the largest and most central mall in the city. It’s part shopping complex, part urban icon, and part teenager’s home away from home.

The birds that appear to be flying through it are actually a multi-part sculpture by Michael Snow, a Canadian filmmaker, musician, visual artist, composer, writer, and sculptor of well-deserved fame. As far as I know they have hung up there since the mall opened many years ago.

Many artists and intellectuals excoriate the Eaton Centre, or malls in general for that matter, but I love the energy they have, especially the food courts where the teenagers hang around displaying pack behaviour, showing off, making out, and avoiding school and their parents. I’m mostly a writer, not a photographer, and I’ve done some of my best writing in malls, sitting in the midst of that storm of hormones and electricity and music with my laptop.

For that reason I wanted to capture a different view of the Centre than the usual postcard image, something that would convey some of the sense of life that I feel there. This picture, with the real plants in the foreground and the apparent birds in the background could be mistaken for a jungle shot until you realize that you’re staring up at a glass roof (modeled, like so many things, on the Crystal Palace of London’s 1851 Great Exhibition). And that is really what I’m trying to convey – malls aren’t a denial of nature, as so many cynics would have you believe, they’re just another place for it to happen, as Christopher Singh obviously felt when he wrote the poem above.

And if I could only arrange for it, the musical accompaniment for this image would be Bootsy Collins’ “Jungle Bass” (despite its terrible cover art). It is a great album, and Bootsy is a damned genius. Second choice: “Jungle Boogie” by Kool and the Gang, from back when they really were still actually cool (you can hear a sample here if you scroll down, or get the Pulp Fiction soundtrack). Make my funk the P-Funk / I want my funk uncut!