Salman Khalid

     A dinner table and a negotiation table; The Writing is on the wall uses the graffiti of the city of Toronto to connect two distant narratives to explore what it means to be a part of a city and furthermore, to question who gets to have a say in its shaping. Graffiti is an art form, an act of delinquency, a means of communication, civic engagement, civic disengagement, an act of rebellion, a testament of existence, more and less. The graffiti of Toronto tells its story to willing eyes, one that is authored by disparate hands and as ever changing as the city its self.

     “The writing is on the wall” is an idiom meant to convey that some unspoken misfortune or end will soon occur. It originates in the biblical story of the feast of Belshazzar in the book of Daniel. In the story a prideful and selfish king disrespect the chalices of Jerusalem and so scorns God. A ghostly hand appears by a lampstand and writes MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. Daniel a wise man of God, interprets the writing as a foretelling of the king’s downfall. Later that night king Belshazzar is found dead

     After years of feeling disrespected and used the city of Toronto’s public workers’ have attempted to open the negotiating table for a better deal. The city has failed to respond in good faith to the workers concerns. They have stalled negotiations, offered inadequate wage increases and continued to cripple public services with wasteful spending and mismanagement. In response the cities workers will soon escalate their negotiation into a strike.

     The prophetic certainty of Baltazar’s divine death can only be contested by the by the everyday uncertainty of the cities concerns. In the back of everyone’s mind is the same silent question. “How long can business as usual keep going”. Steal bends, glass breaks, Vacant skyscrapers have to give way too, don’t they? Empires rise, and as Baltazar has taught us, empires fall; all things must come to an end. In a city littered with graffiti, discontent and wealth disparity the all-city tag, Daniel 5:5, serves as both a hope and a warning to – in equal proportion - prepare for the oncoming destruction, and to be patient for salvation.