The Opti-Collective

Urban barriers are everywhere. Seriously, walk down Spadina and count how many people have intentionally placed something –a cell phone, iPod, sunglasses—between themselves and you: the faceless stranger. It’s in this light that photographer Jalani Morgan’s ‘Safety Glasses’ series uses an old pair of construction glasses in order to deconstruct big city stoicism. Adding a ‘weird layer of approachable nerd’, the glasses instantly transform the subject from a source of social threat into your new best friend. The wearer becomes member of the tribe of effortless cool, reminding us that, not only are we part of the global collective, but that we’re all hopeless geeks inside.