Borrowed Identity looks at several towns in Ontario that carry the names of European cities, such as London, Paris, Vienna, Dublin, and Zurich. These names have historical and cultural importance, but the towns are simple and reflect the everyday life of rural and suburban Canada. Presenting photographs as postcards, typically sold in tourist spots despite their lacklustre design, encourages viewers to rethink the meaning of travel and how much of that desire is influenced by names and adopted identities.

My interest in this disconnect stems from growing up in Hong Kong, where many streets are named after places in the UK. One example is MacDonnell Road (麥當勞道). In Chinese, the name reads the same as “McDonald’s,” and when I was young, I imagined finding the fast-food chain there. Instead, it was a steep and uneventful residential road. Recently, tourists from Mainland China have been visiting this street to take photos, amused by the mismatch. Something ordinary to locals becomes curious to outsiders, solely because of its name.

Many towns in Ontario exhibit a colonial yearning for European prestige, yet they still maintain a distinctly rural Canadian feel. Visiting these towns reveals moments of beauty and signs of uniqueness, although it does not make them truly significant places. The borrowed names accentuate the irony of their ordinary nature.