"The Ward"

Read a great article in the Toronto Star yesterday highlighting the (largely forgotten) history of the downtown Toronto neighbourhood once called "The Ward"-- home to thousands of immigrants who arrived in the city between the 1890s and 1920s.  This neighbourhood, which my work happens to be right in the heart of, was home to Toronto's first Chinatown and was even earlier a bustling-- if utterly impoverished-- multicultural community.  John Lorinc of the Star asks: "How should the present-day city excavate and commemorate the heritage of this ghost neighbourhood and its critical role in the shaping of modern Toronto?" An important and timely question as heritage buildings are jeopardized by the unprecedented amount of development happening in the downtown core right now.  FYI: "The Ward" was demolished in the 1950s to make way for Nathan Phillips Square, New City Hall and hospital row on University Avenue.

The Encampment

I was lucky to catch The Encampment-- a massive temporary public art piece by artist collaborators (as well as a huge number of contributing artists) Thomas+Guinevere a couple of weeks ago at Fort York.  200 tents were placed on the grounds of Fort York-- site of The War of 1812-- which served as individual sites for artistic interventions.  The project's handout explained that each tent installation was inspired by real individuals living in the Canadas during the war.  As compelling as some of the tent installations were, for me the real power in the installation was the sight of the 200 tents together on a historic site against the backdrop of the changing city.

Though the tents were (for me) a thoroughly engaging evocation of Canada's history, I can't help but also see them a bittersweet metaphor for my own vague alienation and feelings of displacement in the city I was born in as it changes more everyday.

Crime Map Walk

Here are some photos from my final project for my Performance Art class.  The following text is my short artist statement about the project.

Crime Map Walk
Performance documentation from 10.12.11 
Video, laptop, paper, pins


This performance is inspired by the idea of the artist as traveler, responding to the city they find themselves in as well as walking tours and maps.  Its jumping off point was an online “crime map” of Baltimore, which one can consult to find an up-to-the-minute map and information indicating the locations and types of crimes committed across the city.  Before coming to Baltimore, I found myself browsing such maps as a way of attempting to distinguish between the “good” and “bad” parts of the city.  As any long-time resident of Baltimore knows, it is quite difficult to make such a distinction here, where there is a fairly high crime rate city-wide.


For this performance, I used the Baltimore Crime Map (http://crimebaltimore.com/) to trace a walking path between my house in Charles Village and a main intersection in the Inner Harbour.  I then walked this long path, trying to pass as many sites of recent crimes as possible, taking photo-documentation in the form of over 100 photographs taken every half-block or so along the way.  These photographs were then turned into a stop-motion style video, which serves as the main document of the performance.


This performance plays with the idea of how people respond to crime and fear in an urban environment.  As a defense mechanism, many people avoid areas they feel are “bad” in their day-to-day travels.  This performance reverses this logic, and in doing so, faces certain fears of crime head on.  Also, in performing this walk on a Saturday during the holiday season, I realized that hardly anyone was walking around on the streets I walked during my journey.  This performance also attempts to address the importance of street life and pedestrianism in keeping cities both lively and safe.