Lost, found, missing... (six)

Lost, found, missing... (five)

Lost, found, missing

News Flash! Montreal is the North American capital for deserting animals when people move. It's more than 75,000 animals left behind, dropped off on the roadside, left at the SPCA, or otherwise disposed of as Quebecers move, en masse, every year on July 1st. Maybe people think someone else will move in and adopt their cat, dog, hampster, guppies, or other animals... Individual social responsibility (as opposed to imposed collective action) was never a high point in la belle province. Bob Barker, where are you when we need you?

Re. these photos: I love finding repeated actions on city streets; for instance, lost, found, and missing pet posters. Always home made, they are often plaintive cries for the return of their missing pet. Photos of disappeared cats or dogs, or parrots, taken when the animal wasn't lost, a time of happiness, become mug shots of possibly miserable animals. All of our childhood fears of being deserted by our parents return to us as we look at these posters; context is everything for transformation; the animal now becomes an archdetype for our fears of abandonment.

Lost, found, missing

Lost, found, missing

Lost, found, missing

Lost, found, missing

Lost, found, missing

Lost, found, missing... (four)

Looking at these posters for lost, sometimes found, sometimes still missing pets--and occasionally missing people--the images taken in happier days become images of sadness, grief, and loneliness. A new context for presenting the image, in a poster, changes the meaning of the image from one of love and happiness to a context of loss.

We transform our pets into surrogate children, surrogate partners--we place a human burden on them--and yet, obviously, we don't value them as much as we value humans, there are few, or no posters for lost children. There is a poignancy to the images. As the image ages, it becomes damaged by water, faded by sunlight, and hope of finding the lost pet is diminished. The pet stares back at us, lost, sometimes found, missing.

Lost, found, missing... (three)

Lost, found, missing... (two)

Lost, found, missing... (one)

Probably because of the context of these photographs, they have a forlorn look to them. Family photographs become mug shots for the lost. Many of us know the archetype of being lost. I've been lost several times and wandered, perhaps in "circles" as they say, and it was a miserable experience. Here we have lost cats, dogs, people... how many are found? How many find new homes, or no home at all.