John van Gurp

On my slither to work a couple of weeks ago I saw a small Ziploc baggie duct taped around the dangling cable of a broken down old payphone… Can you guess where it is?The message visible through the plastic was

“In case of poetic emergency break seal - write / draw / express”

…and there was a piece of paper and a little golf-style pencil inside. I chuckled and felt good that someone had done this, but I just carried on to the cubicle farm without acting.

Today as I passed I saw it was still there! So instead of passing by I broke the seal and left a poem and it felt good. It seemed like protection from the approaching day in its sealed office with emails and papers and photocopies and the various annoyances that seem extra obvious on a Monday morning. Even better was seeing on my way home that someone else left words! Very cool.

Over my many years of walking around the city I’ve seen many similar street art projects and wondered about who and why, and what it means. Was it done while laughing? Is it a subversion of mainstream art? Is it a repurposing and replatforming of corporate or municipal infrastructure? The phone was broken after all; why not turn it into a frame for this piece of interactive public art? Reclaim it and change it from a piece of useless junk into a place to express yourself.

Here’s a Wikipedia entry for Street Art

I might make a little sketch tomorrow. Hope you can find it and make your own contribution.

Cheers,
John