Photograffiti

Wheat paste, and why we keep tearing it

The city edits posters faster than any art director. We take notes.

Narrow street canyon between old buildings, monochrome
FIG. 01 Poster wall, Boulevard Saint-Laurent · on-camera flash

Every poster wall is a magazine with no editor-in-chief. Layers go up, layers come down, and the tear line between them is the most honest crop in the city. Nobody composes it; everybody reads it.

That tension — museum print, street paste — is the whole reason this marketplace looks the way it does. The film rebate keeps a frame precious. The torn edge admits the frame will be pasted over. Both are true of every photograph ever made.

So when a section break in this folio rips instead of fading, that is not decoration. It is a reminder that the work goes up in public, in weather, next to whatever the night crew pasted at 3 a.m. Shoot accordingly.

Filed to № 01 — October 2026. Set in Bodoni Moda over Libre Franklin.