Stretching across the facade of the Drake Hotel during CONTACT 2007 is Untitled Legacy, Isabelle Hayeur’s monumental portrait of the West Queen West neighbourhood. The hurried passerby may assume this a conventional photograph, or perhaps even a reflection, of cityscape.

However, upon closer examination the view begins to unravel, revealing a composite image of the area so true to life as to constitute digital trompe l’oeil. Hayeur’s process of isolating landscape elements from various photographs and then fusing them together into a new, finely distilled image subtly reveals the tensions inherent in an urban neighbourhood in transition.

For the last few decades, the cycle of decay and renewal has been accelerating to breakneck speed along the Queen West corridor—with the collision of viewpoints, theories and planning—throwing off more than a few sparks along the way. Hayeur’s image stands witness to this change not in the impartial manner of a photo, but in the mutable manner of a pixel, portraying multiple sides of the story simultaneously. Here the artist invites you to enter the image of these changing surroundings through your own lens.

Untitled Legacy is included in the exhibition Looking The Other Way, along with works by Thomas Bangsted, Jesper Just, Andreas Koch, Søren Lose, Sergei Sviatchenko, and Penelope Umbrico, curated by Mia Nielsen.