Through analog photography and drawing, Tyler Durbano explores the thresholds between form and feeling, presence and absence. This ongoing body of work stems from a practical response to making that evolved during the pandemic. On walks through Simcoe County and Barrie, Durbano searches for moments of recognition in the landscape. With a Polaroid camera in hand, they capture places where desire paths and compressed grass document alternate routes; a cartography of bodies seeking places of difference, refuge, calm, seclusion, or convenience. Their practice is rooted in slow observation and intuitive engagement with place, mapping atmospheres, latent histories, and ephemeral traces of queer life in suburban and rural locations. Through iterative and responsive pencil crayon drawings and Polaroid photographs, they reframe overlooked sites as spaces of quiet power and potential, often evoking the intuitive and interpretive nature of cruising.  

Through the analog technology of the Polaroid, chance and patience become part of the making. The print is the negative, the material of light captured. What is installed is what was there: exposed, developed, and handled at the site. Mounted in changing constellations with intuitively rendered pencil crayon compositions, these diary Durbano’s research-driven exploration of queer spatiality.