Photo by Action Hero and Mia + Eric

Future Perfect: New By-laws for Civic Spaces is a hopeful, positive act of re-configuration. By-laws that regulate behaviours in civic spaces – in this case, Toronto’s Parks by-laws – are cut up word-by-word and meticulously rearranged into a new set of rules for a transitioning world.

From this new poetic script, selected phrases are enlarged and re-inserted back into the architecture of the cityscape on billboards, acting as playful instructions, permissions or manifestos; a collection of imagined alternative behaviours unfolding throughout the city. As the signs appear across the city from the words of Toronto’s existing by-laws, an accidental poetry emerges that invites the reader to imagine new ways to move through civic space; re-constructing and re-engineering possible futures.

You are invited to help with re-constructing Toronto’s new Future Perfect by-laws! Visit futureperfectbylaws.com to submit your own new rule, using cut-up words from the original text.

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Co-presented with The Bentway, in association with The Theatre Centre, as part of ArtworxTO: Toronto’s Year of Public Art 2021-2022.

Mia + Eric and Action Hero