The panel. Photo by Tina Chu.
By Tina Chu
It’s not often I find myself in north Toronto, something I probably share with a few of the panelists at a recent Leona Drive Project event presented by L.O.T.: Experiments in Urban Research. It’s a discussion entitled “Reimagining the future of Toronto’s inner suburbs: An open dialogue on arts, creativity and community,” and it features the expertise of Janine Marchessault, John Filion, Robin Collyer, Michael Prokopow, Shawn Micallef, and Doug Young.
Moderated by Steven Logan, PhD candidate in York and Ryerson’s Communication and Culture Program and L.O.T. member, the panel introduces how the LDP came about and, more importantly, how the suburbs came to be its focus and how art could enrich the suburbs.
At first, as co-curator Janine Marchessault explains, she and the L.O.T. Collective had focused on exploring and staging exhibits in downtown Toronto. Despite their enthusiasm, however, Marchessault and the rest of L.O.T. soon felt their project in the downtown core was a conversation only with themselves — the city is oversaturated with its own representations.
To explore new directions, the group turned their efforts outwards into the suburbs of Toronto, where they came in touch with Ward 23 Councillor, John Filion.
Filion, a Willowdale homeowner since 1978, was the link that connected both curators and collective with Hyatt Homes. Having long awaited an artistic presence in his neighbourhood, Filion passionately commends how LDP integrates art with community and voices his hope that this connection will deepen in years to come.
As a featured artist of LDP, Robin Collyer would like to see a prominent artist presence as well, but longs for a little more radicalism. By radical, Collyer means transient art that risks directly responding to changes in its surroundings.
Besides, as Collyer jokes, if public art fails to connect with its site and its viewers, the city is better off investing money in urban planning instead of in its public art fund.
Expanding the address of public art, OCAD Liberal Studies faculty member and Leona Drive Project co-curator Michael Prokopow cites the complexities of artistic patronage and how public art is increasingly privately funded. Not classifying the trend as either good or bad, Prokopow merely highlights how patronage affects who the art is for and how the neighbourhood comes to be represented.
Of course, Prokopow does consider the art and creativity of suburban families who, through their re-imaginings, can make cookie-cutter houses into homes and live rich lives even within disposable housing frameworks.
Shawn Micallef, senior editor at Spacing magazine and co-founder of [murmur] echoes similar sentiments. For Micallef, regardless of the tool used to achieve it, what creates belonging and builds community is storytelling.
From his own experience of growing up in the suburbs of Windsor and his ongoing practice of psychogeographic walks in Toronto, Micallef observes that as soon as narratives are shared, the nowhere-ness of any space evaporates.
Using art as a storyteller is what Doug Young, professor of Urban Studies at York University, admires about the Leona Drive Project. Young sees the LDP as an act of bearing witness to the continual rebuilding of the city, of its shift from an old normal to a new normal.
And what the new normal will be, Young hopes, is a transformation in language and thought used to describe and consider the space.
“Stop calling these places the suburbs,” Young begins, and points out how the word “suburb” implies uniformity, homogeneity, and a space validated only in its relations to a centre, the city.
“There are all kinds of land uses in the suburbs,” Young says, “and they are not all suburban.” There is no longer a single centre is what Young suggests, but many centres. Instead of using the word “suburbs,” Young adopts the term “in-between cities,” as coined by a German urban planner; a term that better accounts for the complexities of the space at hand without the biases.
“In-between city is not easier to say,” laughs one audience member, to which Young replies, “It’s harder in German.”
While renewed representation is needed, audience member and another LDP-featured artist Anna Friz suggests true change lies in people no longer insisting on owing property. Friz points out that as long as current urban models prevail, property will always be developed to be profitable for its shareholders.
Though the panel reached no definitive conclusions, it did serve to open up people to sharing ideas.
“In-between cities”? In-between what? Urban and rural? Isn’t that only identifying the areas by what they are NOT? That doesn’t seem any more usefull than “suburban”.
Hi Alex,
Thank you for your comment.
This panel is the first time I’ve encountered the term “in-between city,” so please bear with me if my response is less than adequate.
The “in-between” in Thomas Sieverts’ term, “in-between city” or “Zwischenstadt,” has a couple connotations.
One of these refers to being between city and country, which, as you’ve addressed in your comment, isn’t the most productive way of defining any space if it suggests we characterize it by what it is not.
Another meaning for “in-between,” one that probably inspired Young to advocate a change in language, refers to being between states and in some form of transformation where the outcome has yet to be made clear.
Now, whether an uncertain identity is more useful than an identity confined to signify particular spatial form, is open to debate. Though, to speculate, perhaps Young prefers “in-between city” because he feels its inherent uncertainty could at least account for complexities not afforded by its more rigid precedent.
Personally, I appreciate Young’s recognition that the suburb/in-between city doesn’t necessarily revolve around 2.5 kids and a white picket fence anymore. However, were someone to ask me where I’m from in the near future, I’m doubtful “in-between city” will be the response.
Thanks again for reading and sorry my piece failed to properly capture these ideas!