This coming Friday, the Harbourfront Centre officially opens its newest photography exhibit,
Nine Rivers City, a year-long outdoor exhibition showcasing the nine Toronto rivers that feed the Lake Ontario watershed.
"One of the things people talk about when they talk about Ontario or Toronto in particular, is that it is a lake city, and what we wanted to bring to the public's attention was it is also a river city," says Macualay about the rational behind the project."We wanted to show the importance of the rivers in terms of how the city has developed and changed."
"This is the fourth project that we [the Harbourfront Centre] have worked with different organizations to bring attention to issues that pertain to Ontario or Toronto in some way," adds Macaulay. "What these exhibitions do is present ideas, but not in a didactic or heavy-handed way; rather they present ideas through an artistic vision that helps to give the public access to complicated social or ecological issues."
With that goal in mind, and after receiving funding support from real-estate company Menkes, Maculay approached six emerging Toronto photographers he thought were right for the project. Each artist was asked to explore the complexities of the city's waterways, and in particular of the nine rivers--Etobicoke Creek, Mimico Creek, Humber River, Don River, Highland Creek, Rouge River, Duffins Creek, Petticoat Creek, and Carruthers Creek--that feed into the lake Ontario watershed.
"Everyone we asked was eager to work on the project," says Maculay. "My role in part as a curator was to mentor or direct the artists so they're not going in all sorts of directions, but rather focusing on one particular idea and bringing attention to it. It was six months in the works."
The end-result of that work, 72 images by six visual artists, will be on display at the Harbourfront's new
Exhibition Common starting June 21st, and will remain up for public view for an entire year.
"We're really excited that it's going to be so public," says Maculay. "Unlike other exhibitions where you have to enter an exhibition space and be intimated by the gallery, this is outdoors and people can walk in any time of day and can come back and forth. It gives public access to visual arts in a really unique way."
Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Pat Macaulay, Visual Curator, Harbourfront Center