Bookends by Noah

 

At the southern end of Augusta Avenue in Kensington Market, there are a bunch of strange looking creatures lurking mainly in the green space of a private house. These are assembled from different vehicles parts. I am unable to find any reference about these contraptions on the net but a plaque behind one of these works of art reads:

"Bookends"

by Noah

with elaborations by an Anonymous K.A.M. Corporation Artist.

Shoeasaur

Spotted an interesting public work of art on a sidewall of a parking lot at St Andrew Street in Kensington Market. It reads:

Exhibit:

    Petrified Skull and Horn (1)

    2- Headed Shoasaur

    (Biteteschoonensus)

    approx 1.4 Million yrs old

Each head:

    6 (Six) Eyes

    2 (Two) horns = Metal (!)

    Grasping Fist

I think it is a nice witticism on the speculative nature of paleontological findings.

Graffiti Murals at Kensington Market and Around

Kensington Market is possibly one of the best graffiti spots in Toronto along with the famous Graffiti Alley. I started my tour from Augusta Avenue where an Alphonse Mucha style mural adorns a building with a beautiful garden car in its front. However, the famous car of Kensington market was missing from the spot today. Instead, a big van blocked a clear view of the mural. I was forced to take pictures from sides at a bit awkward angle. Later I found out that the car is still in its winter hibernation and will be back on the street later this month.

In the Kensington market, besides side alleys, a number of shops and buildings are covered in murals.

These murals are not limited to the Kensington Market and extend into the surrounding blocks too.

Murals in the side alleys represent a mixture of cultural backgrounds, styles, and themes. These are representative of the high cultural diversity in the area.

Some back alley murals portray a bit darker themes too.

Kensington market is bound by the old Chinatown on its east and south sides. Murals in these areas depict a number of dragon related themes.

I was surprised to find a portrait of former Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie on the sidewall of a shop. Haile Selassie who reigned from 1930 to 1974, is considered an incarnation of God on earth or a prophet by the Jamaican Rastafari religion. Perhaps this mural is a dedication to that faith. Bob Marley, the famous Jamaican singer, and songwriter also belonged to this movement.

Dr. Sun Yat-sen

The statue and the plaque of Dr. Sun Yat-sen in front of Chinatown center in the Old Chinatown

Dr. Sun is perhaps the only leader in the recent Chinese history who is equally respected both in mainland China and in Taiwan. He was the first president of the Republic of China after overthrowing of the Qing dynasty in 1911 revolution. 

In Taiwan, he is respected as the ‘Father of the Nation’ who established democracy in place of Qing monarchy while in mainland China he is seen as a nationalist and a proto-socialist whose struggles culminated in the communist revolution later.

Besides that, he is also considered as one of the three saints in the Vietnamese Caodaism religion along with the 19th-century French novelist Victor Hugo and a Vietnamese poet and sage Nguyen Binh Khiem.

Bata Shoe Museum

A whole museum dedicated just to the footwear seems excessive at first. Then you wander through its galleries and by the end of the tour you realize that this is just a fraction of human ingenuity, diversity, and craft across cultures and ages. You marvel that how much more is out there that needs to be preserved before the great unification of human cultures tramples everything in its path.

Bata Shoe company was founded by Tomáš Baťa (which is pronounced as “Ba’Cha” in native Czech) in 1894 in an area of Austro-Hungarian Empire that now belongs to the Czech Republic. Before the second World war, the Bata family moved to Canada and since that time it is a Canadian owned company.

Bata was the first company to adopt mass production techniques in shoemaking and was thus able to expand rapidly all over the world. The company policy of setting up villages around its factories for workers has resulted in several Bata-villes all around the world. They have been given local names like Bata Pur in Pakistan, Bata Nagar in India, Batadrop in the Netherlands and so on. 

This museum is the brainchild of Mrs. Sonja Bata from the second generation of the Bata family. It is the largest museum of its kind in the world.

The exact replica of Ötzi the Iceman shoe. The 5,300-year-old corpse was discovered in a European glacier in 1991 with clothing and other belongings intact. Like the original shoe, this replica is made of animal skins and vegetable fibers with grass padding for insulation.

Walk like an Egyptian. Footwear from the ancient Egyptian pyramids and tombs.

Lavish footwear from 18th and 19th century India. High heels are certainly not a modern concept.

19th-century footwear from North Africa. The back quarters of these shoes are pressed down allowing for ease of removal before prayers.

Baroque and Rococo style shoes from 18th century Europe.

The golden shoe of an 18th-century Akan chief in the gold coast area of West Africa.

'Asagutsu' shoes of the Japanese Shinto priests. These are carved out of paulownia wood.

Simple yet practical cowhide sandals of Maasai tribesmen from Kenya.

The Jeremy Scott X Adidas golden sneakers take inspiration from the golden-winged sandals of the ancient Greek messenger god Hermes (2015).

A Space Boot from the Apollo Space program.