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Dinkies, soldiers, monkeys
On May Day a shipping container like you see on the decks of freighters landed on Queen Street West .
Where did it come from? And more importantly where has it gone?
The container sprung from the imagination of artist Jeremy Lynch as part of an international street-art project. The container isn't even the important part; it's just the workshop.
For two weeks, the shipping container sat on Abell Street between condo developments and acted as a street-art gallery space for Jeremy's exhibit Containers. As he says, “An individual, art project, free from any institutional or corporate participation.”
Jeremy makes 3d street art from used 35mm film containers and plastic toy figures. “I have been sticking hundreds of these Containers on the streets of Berlin and Toronto since June, 2006.”
He said he likes to see how the containers change their environment and what kind of reaction they provoke.
“Someone might steal a piece or rip it down. Any reaction is a reaction. If the work stays up, is taken down in disgust or heading for someone's collection, it makes no difference to me.”
In his artist statement he says he always takes pictures of the works to document their lives. “In these photographs the plastic toy figures become real, animated characters with a conscience. They live in their container world and speak to us, shock us, make us think or laugh.”
The container is no longer on Queen Street West . It has sailed to Germany for another impromptu street-art exhibit.
But keep an eye out for those little containers. They may have a story to tell.