I'm 26 and originally from Glasgow. I moved to Toronto about a year and a half ago, where I have been working at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health as a program assistant in the Acute Care Unit. I have spent my life working with people with special needs or mental health problems in some capacity. Working here allows me to see the true impacts of the state budget cuts and austerity measures on some of the most stigmatized and downtrodden people in society.

I started making stencils after the eviction of the Toronto encampment for signs and t-shirts used during protests. I work casually at the hospital, which can leave me with very little money for food and paint after paying my rent, and I couldn't afford to buy more than a few t-shirts. So using found wood as a medium came as a bit of a necessity - it allowed me to experiment more with layering - but it also supported the ethos of not buying and consuming when it isn't necessary.

I was researching and reading a few things and came across the phrase, "Too many cops, too little justice" on a European anti-fascist website. The sentiment behind this statement resounded with me and seemed to sum up in a few short words what members of the Occupy Movement had experienced. It's also one of the main problems I feel exists in many societies today: a lack of true justice.

Cities that are cutting down public services due to budget restraints somehow have funds to militarize their police forces in case they need to act against their own people. A great example of this happening right now can be seen in Chicago's spending on security measures before the NATO summit in May.

The beauty of Occupy is that it quickly galvanized strangers into communities of brothers and sisters, and although we did not experience the same intensity of police violence in Toronto, we saw images, tweets and video of our brothers and sisters being violently suppressed on a global scale, and it still felt like a personal attack on us.

To me, Occupy first meant the reclamation of public spaces, a signal that the people had seen the privatisation and commodification of everything around them and were beginning to reclaim the things that had been stripped away. It's also a confirmation to many people that there were others who feel the same way they do, and who also want to work to bring about change. It's as if we are finally able to address the elephants in the room.

Occupy for me now symbolizes hope for a more horizontal, accountable, inclusive, people-before-profit way of living, one where people's inalienable rights are guaranteed and people's voices are heard and listened to.

Craig Nisbet's work can be found on Etsy.