2021
Aerosol and hand-cut vinyl on aluminium composite
61 x 40cm
There are trillions of street corners in the world; this is the story of one.
Over the past 12 years most people walk past this corner on the way to wherever they’re going. Either by themselves, with a friend or maybe just walking the dog but every now and then a story plays out. It’s not very often but when it does it seems to stand out. These are just 3 stories from a street corner.
The first one happened on a warm New Year’s Eve, it was about 2am and everyone was heading home after all the celebrations. One of those heading home was a young lady walking from the tram stop, with bare feet and shoes in her hand. Behind her was a guy walking several metres behind, as if he could be a disgruntled boyfriend or was just not walking fast enough to catch up with her – he too had his shoes in his hand. As the woman turned right into the street and was a few metres along, the guy stopped at the corner and peered around to watch her. It was dark with only a few streetlights to light the way; this scene instantly became very sinister. Little did they know that my husband was watching the scene play out in front of him. He watched the guy peer down the street then look behind himself to make sure the coast was clear. The guy ran down the street, then the woman screamed. My husband by this time had jumped the fence and was quickly behind them.
The second story played out over several hours; late one evening. Sitting on the corner were two figures, we could hear snippets of conversation and makeout that the two people were teenagers. We think they may have gone to a movie and were on their way home. This is when the young boy had tried to break up with the girl, but it didn’t go quite to plan. What should have been a short conversation and then head off home – possibly with the girl very angry – turned into hours of tears, melodrama and bouts of silence. On several occasions the young girl laid on the footpath and when the boy tried to help her get up she made herself heavy like a ragdoll. As I say, this went on for hours and the young boy was starting to get quite distressed, so we eventually rang the police who promptly arrived – I’m sure they were quite startled when the police car drove up to them. They were then driven home.
The final story ended as quickly as it started. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and our neighbour noticed a man collapsed on the footpath. He rang the ambulance and they quickly ascertained that the man had suffered an overdose. They treated him on the spot, while a small crowd gathered. The man came around suddenly and couldn’t believe all the fuss. He told them in no uncertain terms that he was fine, stood up and continued to walk down the street as if nothing had happened. Our neighbour thought that he was probably on his way to score more drugs, but we never did find out.