Waterlicht is a large-scale light installation by Daan Roosegaarde, a Dutch artist. It showed at the Bentway, in front of Fort York, for three nights this past weekend.
below: Light, like water flowing under the Gardiner.
below: The fluid patterns of light and smoke created waves and angles of blue.
below: One of many selfies
below: From above
Anthropocene
an exhibit of photographs by Edward Burtynsky
highlighting the mark that man is leaving on the environment.
below: Lithium Mine #1, Salt Flats, Atacama Desert, Chile, 2017 . The Salar de Atacama is the largest salt flat in Chille, located in the driest non-polar desert in the world. This is also the world’s greatest source of lithium. The shades of yellow, green, and blue represent the different stages of lithium evaporation.
below: A plastics recycling plant, Dandora landfill in Nairobi, Kenya, 2016
below: Uralkali Potash Mine #4, Berezniki Russia, 2017. This Russian mine includes about 3000 km of underground tunnels created by machines called combines used in the potash extraction process. These spaces are dark. The spiral patterns are left by the combines.
below: Morenci Mine #2, Clifton Arizona USA, 2012. Part of this photo shows the liquid reserves of waste left over from the copper extraction process. The marble like colours are the result of leached heavy metals. Copper smelting requires between 1500 and 3000 litres of water for every to of processed ore.
One of my stops the other day was the Ryerson Image Centre.
below: Students enjoying the un-autumn-like weather while the pond is almost empty.
The main exhibit at the Ryerson Image Centre is based on the work of Gordon Parks, specifically his ‘Flavio’ photo essay. Gordon Parks was an African-American, born in Kansas in 1912. He bought his first camera in a pawn shop. In 1948 he began a 23 year career at LIFE magazine where he created many photo essays including ‘Flavio’. In the 1960’s Parks went to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to document the poverty there. He centered the project around a boy, Flavio, and his impoverished family, the Da Silvas. When the photographs and story appeared in ‘LIFE’ magazine in June 1961, it caused quite a stir, especially in Brazil. In return, a Brazilian photographer, Henri Billot , visited the poorer parts of Manhattan to prove that the poverty in the United States was as bad as the poverty in Brazil. The family that Billot concentrated on was the Gonzalez family. There is also some discussion about candid photos vs images that are staged in documentary photography.
As a reaction to the LIFE article, Flavio was brought to the USA for two years to treat his asthma. Money was also raised to relocate the Da Silva family to a new home.
below: Some of the photos by Gordon Parks.
below: Flavio and his brother Mario on the promenade in Rio during their first trip outside the favela. 1961. Favela is Brazilian Portuguese word for slum, or low income area a city (usually on the outskirts). In the 1960s the favelas were populated mostly by migrants from rural areas who couldn’t afford living in the city. These areas didn’t have running water, electricity, or sanitation.
below: Photo by Henri Billot
below: Neighbourhood of the Gonzalez family, Manhattan, 1961, by Henri Billot (my apologies for the reflections).
below: Flavio and his wife Cleuza da Silva in Rio in 1976 when Gordon Parks returned to see how the Da Silva had fared since his earlier visits.
In the student gallery was a small exhibit of the work of Alia Youssef. Her project ‘The Sisters Project’ features portraits of Canadian Muslim women of all ages all with a narrative of their own. Their portraits were on the wall of the gallery but their portraits and stories are on the website (it’s well worth a visit!)
In light of the recent earthquake in Indonesia, the third exhibit at the Ryerson Image Centre seems timely. It is a display of photographs taken in the aftermath of the earthquake in Mexico City on 19th September 1985. At the time it was the strongest earthquake on record. Large portions of the city center and the neighbourhoods next to it were leveled.
below: Photo by Barbara Laing.
below: Photo by Pedro Mayer.
The annual World Press Photo Exhibit is on at the Alan Lambert Galleria once again.
below: Finding Freedom in the Water by Anna Boyiazis, 2nd place, People stories.
below: Walking past four photos by Luca Locatelli about the environment, 2nd prize stories. These were taken in the Netherlands, a country that is the world’s second largest exporter of food (by value, after the USA).
below: On the right is “Jump”, by Thomas P. Peschak featuring a group of Rockhopper Penguins on Marion Island. Second prize, nature singles.
below: ‘Rohingya Refugees Flee into Bangladesh’, by Kevin Frayer. General news, 2nd prize stories.
below: “Wasteland” by Kadir van Lohuizen. A look at garbage in different countries. First prize, environment stories.
below: First prize winner in Long Term Projects, stories, “Ich Bin Waldviertel ” by Carla Kogelman – The life of two rural Austrian girls since 2012.
This year’s Nuit Blanche was on September 28th and 29th. The night’s activities were spread over a large number of locations around the city. That was a few days ago so yes, I am a bit behind. I was laid low for a couple of days with this cold that’s been going around… or I took a few days to recover from being up until 3:30 a.m.!
below: Part of ‘Continuum: Pushing Towards the Light’ by Brandy Leary and the Anandam Dancetheatre. They made they way across the glass enclosed bridge over Queen Street between the Eaton Centre and The Bay store.
below: From behind the burlap (or tarp?) Nathan Phillips Square, from an installation ‘Radical Histories 2012-2018’ by Ibrahaim Mahama.
below: More from the same installation, this time from the “right” side. It was great for making shadow figures. Thanks to Jude for starting off the evening with me… and getting creative (silly?) too.
below: We found a photo shoot on Bay Street.
below: On Bloor Street, nothing to do with Nuit Blanche but it looked cool. Reflections and lights.
below: Eaton Centre, a quieter moment that night.
below: Checking the map. Yonge Dundas Square – the installation there was very unimpressive so I took people pics instead.
below: At Church of the Redeemer (Avenue Road and Bloor), Korean Dancers. “Star Moon Water Stone” by Ensemble Jeng Yi
below: Drummers, same venue as above.
below: ‘This Storm is You’ at the Ontario Science Centre, an installation by Zahra Saleki. Photography on the walls and stories on the floor.
below: Walk among the stories. “Every story deserves to be lit. Grab a sharpie and write yours.”
below: Smile!.. and a testament to the start of love. Two of many lit stories.
below: Saleki’s photos displayed here are abstract dance photographs in black and white. Negative images and slowing the camera to produce the blur of motion.
below: This is what you saw when you first got off the subway (is the SRT a subway?) at Scarborough Town Centre. It’s part of the ‘The Things They Carried’ Babel series. The motifs are similar to those on the installation at Yonge -Dundas Square, that oops, I don’t have a picture of.
below: At Scarborough Civic Centre, ‘Everything I Wanted to Tell You’ by Hiba Abdallah. A series of words in lights projected onto several buildings. The words changed every few seconds to tell a story or two.
below: More of the words. “People hold on so tightly to a specific narrative of this place”.
below: More projections at Scarborough Civic Centre. Sorry, not sure which installation this is.
below: Scarborough Town Centre (mall) had a mountain of inflatable globes you could walk under, or just look at. ‘Walk Among Worlds’ by Maximo Gonzalez
below: Weaving stories, ‘Interlacing’ by Community Arts Guild, at Scarborough Town Centre.
below: Watching a performance at the Scarborough Civic Centre.
below: Running through the lights.
below: Reflections, Aga Khan Museum
below: more Aga Khan
below: Showing ‘Insomnia’, a video filmed in Tehran showing simply the view out his bedroom window, by Simin Keramati, Aga Khan Museum
below: Trash at Yonge Dundas Square. Nothing to do with Nuit Blanche, just an ordinary day’s worth of garbage. It just happened to catch my eye as I was walking down the stairs to the subway.
Ending with rubbish would be a weird way to end a post, so here’s another mannequin. I saw lots of them that night too, unfazed by the activity around them, unmoved by the night’s events.
below: I’m out here every night. Nice of you to finally notice….
From the monochrome past to the coloured present – there’s a new mural on the corner of St. Clair West and Spring Grove painted by Christiano De Araujo. Old black and white photos of the area and its people provide the background for a group of ten very modern and diverse people.
below: The top photo is 1732 St. Clair West in 1911.
below: On the top, very left corner, the black and white photo is a street scene – It’s St Clair Ave looking east from Prescott Avenue, under the railway bridge and beyond. The bridge was built in 1931 and the photo was taken shortly after that.
This is a StART (StreetARToronto) project
The Gardens of St. Clair is a mural project in an alley behind St. Clair West between Prescott and Blackthorn Avenues, just west of the railway tracks. There are lots of roses and other flowers as well as butterflies and birds.
below: A purple pansy and a luminescent insect with a shiny blue body. The dark green vine motif runs throughout the project.
below: Flowers inside the door too.
below: Wunder three times over.
The plaque on the wall says:
The Gardens of St. Clair
Concept by Mike (Wunder) Kennedy, 1973-2017.
Featuring work by: Bacon, Kane, Rony, Wales, Kwest, Baler, Tensoe2, Flown, Vinse, Whysper, Adore, Miles, Sight, Elwal, Emes, and Nick Sweetman
