A day in the life of Lucie Idlout

SARA MINOGUE

Torontonians get used to seeing a lot of people, but rarely do they get a glimpse into the ordinary lives of the strangers among them.

That’s one of the reasons the City of Toronto produced “My City, My Life,” a photography display set up on the main floor of City Hall from Jan. 28 to Feb. 10, during the annual Winter City festival.

“My City, My Life” featured 24 photos from 24 different people, shot over 24 hours, or one day in their life.

Among those invited to participate were artists, athletes, businessmen and celebrities, including TV host Ben Mulroney, comedian Rick Mercer, musician Nelly Furtado, author Michael Ondaatje and Olympic athlete Jeff Adams.

Iqaluit’s own rocker Lucie Idlout was among those who got a letter from Toronto Mayor David Miller asking them to take part.

“My first question was, ‘how the hell did David Miller find out I was in Toronto?’” Lucie says.

Next, Lucie says she was nervous about how the photos, which were to be shot on two disposable cameras, would turn out.

“And also if my life was interesting enough to shoot for a project like this because I was alongside some pretty prominent Torontonians.”

Nonetheless, she agreed, and so, on a rainy, blustery January day, she shot 24 photos with a disposable camera, starting in her kitchen at 2 p.m. and winding up at the Blue Rodeo recording studio at 4 a.m. where she’s at work on her forthcoming album, Swagger.

She started with a photo of the couple who run the cyber cafe she used to frequent. Next was her favourite restaurant, a Jamaican fusion eatery. She shot her favourite pub, The Paddock, and “generally anybody that I came into contact with who I thought was interesting,” including the man driving a streetcar she took.

Several people photographed are simply her neighbors in Parkdale, a trendy neighborhood on the west side of Toronto’s downtown where musicians and painters live next door to drug dealers and the working poor, and art galleries are opening up next door to pawn shops.

“It’s a little depressing. It’s largely a have-not neighborhood, but the creativity that exists there feels pretty unique.”

Lucie first moved to Toronto two and a half years ago to take a starring role on “Buffalo Tracks,” the TV show she hosted on APTN.

The adjustment wasn’t easy.

“There’s no question that it was a definite struggle when I first moved there. I hated it. It was difficult to get used to such a huge city. I didn’t have a support network there or a ton of friends, so it was pretty trying.”

Lucie now divides her time between Iqaluit and Toronto, but says she has grown to love the big city.

As for the photography project, Lucie says she’s “still baffled,” but happy she got to be a part of it.

“I hardly think that any of our lives are that interesting… but maybe that’s me taking the life that I get to live for granted because I know that it’s not the norm. Most people aren’t up at four o’clock in the morning at the studio and I guess I’m lucky that that’s the life I get to live.”

Timothy Luginbuhl, who programmed the event for the City of Toronto, says he thought of Lucie immediately when he started compiling a list of musicians to contribute to the project. He first met Lucie two years earlier, when she acted in a play he produced called “Two Words for Snow.”

“The image of her in that play stuck with me,” Luginbuhl says. “She’s such a unique person that when I got to know her a little bit as an actor, I started to look into her music a little bit, and her politics and her history. I watched her show on APTN.”

“The surprising reaction was that a lot of people really got into the pictures… obviously everyone wanted to see the celebrities that they know but there’s also a tremendous amount of interest in the photographs a firefighter took, and the idea that these are people living lives outside the public eye — ordinary lives that were quite extraordinary.”