Our public spaces are starting to show the effects of consumerism at its very worst. An insidious web of advertising stretches across this fair city, infiltrating our parks and playgrounds, our streets and street furniture, touching all of our lives with its menace. Every day, we walk a growing gauntlet of ghastly garbage cans and beastly billboards, of wicked wire fences and terrible TTC trams, all their surfaces plastered in ads.
Enter the Toronto Public Space Committee (TPSC), here to rescue our precious shared spaces (and our impressionable minds) from the grabby hand of corporate intrusion.
Recently named the best activist group in the city by NOW Magazine, the TPSC is a grassroots, non-profit organization dedicated to protecting our public space from commercial influence and privatization. Since its inception in 2001, the TPSC has become a major proponent of free speech in Toronto’s visual environment, reclaiming the city’s streets, sidewalks, alleyways, and parks in the name of public property.
The TPSC is the story of one man’s passion that grew into community-wide action.
“The city’s anti-postering bylaw really helped to launch the group,” says Dave “Mez” Meslin, TPSC’s founder and local activist-about-town. “I couldn’t help but notice the double standard applied to postering. Citizens were not allowed to put up their personal posters, but large corporations-the people with the money-had the city’s permission to post huge advertisements. I saw it as very anti-democratic-it’s clamping down on community expression. And the amount of money the city receives isn’t even worth it.
“The city sells off public space left and right, allowing advertising in places it wasn’t allowed before,” he continues. “Whether it’s Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, or The Gap, the people are being shut out, and the big corporations are given free rein.”
The group consists of mostly young, community-oriented individuals who volunteer their time to defend and beautify Toronto’s public space. It appeals to volunteers because it is not a typical activist group.
“I always wanted to be involved with political activism, but found it intimidating,” says Jonathan Goldsbie, co-coordinator of the Monster Garbage Cans campaign. “I was attracted to the TPSC because of its non-traditional activist approach.”
Rather than affecting change through protest, the organization exerts its influence from within the system, debating municipal policy at City Hall, holding community events, and encouraging concerned citizens to get involved. The group prefers to lead by example, eschewing sponsors and getting by without a big budget.
TPSC campaigns are numerous and varied. The Billboard Battalion campaign, led by Alison Gorbould, prevents the corporate takeover of public space by billboards. Jonathan Goldsbie’s Monster Garbage Cans campaign combats the sidewalk installation of giant garbage dumpsters.
“They’re designed first and foremost as billboards,” says Goldsbie. “Their garbage disposal function is only an afterthought.”
The campaigns also seek to improve the aesthetics of public space. Not only do they attack eyesores such as billboards and giant trash cans, but they also suggest alternatives to advertising in public space, such as various forms of visual art.
“I think art plays a huge role in public space. It adds diversity to our landscape and personifies our communities,” states Kristin Li, head of the Art Attack campaign.
Under the leadership of Meslin, the TPSC organized an art exhibit in early January called What the TTC Could Be, which encouraged local artists to reimagine TTC streetcars as blank canvasses and let their artistic imaginations run wild.
The exhibit was similar in vision to the current In Transit art show being sponsored by local ‘zine Spacing (an offshoot of the TPSC) at the Toronto Free Gallery. The exhibit of photos, paintings, videos, and audio by 25 local artists examines the everyday beauty and shared experiences that breathe life into Toronto’s buses, streetcars, and subways.
But isn’t advertising itself an art form? After all, New York’s Museum of Modern Art routinely showcases advertisements as works of art.
Li disagrees. “My problem with advertisement is often not about aesthetics,” she says. “I would welcome public artwork from the same people that currently design billboards. But no matter how beautiful it is, I can’t see an ad as art-it’s just attractive packaging designed to fuel our ridiculous over-consumption habits. I can appreciate a designer’s skill, but in the context of an ad, I can’t ignore the baggage.”
Meslin concurs. “There’s a very clear distinction between advertising and art,” he explains. “Art is an expression of an individual. If an advertising company hires an artist to create an ad, the individual expression is lost. You can have an artistic ad, but it’s not art.”
Judging by the TPSC’s numerous accomplishments, their hard work is paying off. They recently succeeded in preventing the installation of TVs in TTC trams, delaying the implementation of a new anti-postering bylaw, and preventing Cineplex Odeon’s video billboards from being erected along the Gardiner Expressway.
Despite some criticism, the TPSC is touted as a group of urban heroes by the Toronto community at large, and its accolades more than justify its place within the local activist scene. The members remain committed to their vision.
“We’d like to see public space returned to the public to be used as an expression of community,” says Meslin. “We’d like the city councillors to realize that public space is something to invest in, and not to sell off as a resource.”
“Community messages, announcements, poetry, and mural art can all take the place of advertisements,” Meslin adds. “The diversity of voices in public space represents the diversity of the city.”
