Under The Highways: The Colour of Concrete

Montreal, QC - Cream - HKI - Sunday, October 25th, 2009 : goo

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I took these photos somewhere between July and June this summer underneath the infamous Montreal ringways (mainly Décarie) which are under constant reconstruction. When you walk underneath these ringways and look up, at the bottom of the road, you can actually see missen pieces of concrete along with red and blue spray marks tagging the weak spots going under repair. These marks are not of course tags which writers are known for but marks for the reconstruction company to keep a record of their never ending work. This year alone Montreal had at least two major concrete collapses. One in downtown which demolished a restaurant completely and another one, a bridge, which collapsed leaving one orphan survivor while killing the rest of his the family.

The ringways are supported by hundreds if not thousands of concrete pilars underneath. The comprehensive and dominating grey - the lack of colour - leaves a very urban ambience to a degree that it is quite difficult to avoid describing it as simply depressing. Yet, those thousands of square feet of grey concrete makes it a desirable and a fertile place for graffiti writers to express themselves in any imaginable way by colouring every inch of grey they can get their hands on. The ringway also provides a perfect environment for starting writers to develope and master their style before taking it to more exposed places. Throw ups, dabs, tags and various forms of artistic expression are like a void - neverending - miles after miles not a single column left untouched. I walked around hours with my Nokia N95 eventually finding myself hungry, exchausted, out of battery and more or less lost somewhere in the suburbs of Montreal...

art street art urban urban art urban environment
graffiti graffiti art highway ringway concrete

Thousands of words behind one.

Heres This picture was so out of focus that I had to pour some acid on it. My apologies...

Some repair tags and a bottom which has been filled with new concrete.

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