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Sharon Harris is "a woman of ethereal interests."-Toronto Life


ABOUT ILYG


"Love is, to our best knowledge, effortless, and all of our efforts should be brought to rearranging all the politics of the world so that it is effortless. Everyone would be in love with 140 to 10,000 people, and you would nearly always be among people you were in love with or were in love with people you were in love with, and then not only love would be effortless, just about everything would, in a broad humane spirit, without fear of any kind. Ya, possible."

-John Barlow, poet


In her early twenties, Sharon Harris was a very active activist. She gave time, energy and thought to environmental and social issues, and stayed on top of the latest world news. She felt like she was haphazardly applying Band-Aid solutions to one crisis after another. Sharon longed for a magic button to save the world (in spite of the button pushers that could destroy it).

Of course, love is the only magic we need to push all the right buttons. Instead of trying to change the world, Harris decided it makes more sense to love it. The crises are symptoms of a global disbelief in the power of love. If we could all open to love--even just a little more--worldly problems would vanish.

I Love You is simply an action statement to describe what is, but at this very moment in our culture's development, it's also a political slogan. The ILY project represents Harris's politics.

You say you want a revolution? Start by saying I Love You to 140 to 10,000 people.





ILYG opened its virtual doors in Spring 2002, with a clickable map of Toronto's I Love You graffiti and photos of Toronto literary events. Since then, the site has grown to include multiple galleries of work by its proprietor, alongside art by photographers and graffiti artists from across North America.

In 2006, Harris presented a solo exhibition, I Love You Toronto, which received nationwide media coverage. Sharon's first collection of poetry, AVATAR, contains a section named after the I Love You Virus, and was launched by The Mercury Press, 2006) at Pages Books' and NOW Magazine's This Is Not a Reading Series. She is Past Books Editor at Torontoist.com, and is currently working on an illustrated manuscript, I Love You: Three Little Words.