How We Live In Cities celebrates parks as a central way to experience living in cities with Park Site; a program all about parks. This was an opportunity to share news about parks, present projects and exchange ideas.
PARKSITE PROJECTS IN PARKS AND GREEN SPACE
May / June / July / August 2018
BRING YOUR COLOUR
May 5th, 1:00 to 3:00
Campbell Street Park
Play Here! Select your colour and contribute to a shared temporary community sculpture. Large transparent sheets of different colours were used by participants to stretch, layer, stack, tower, tip and build ephemeral art constructs.
CONSTELLATION
May 22, 4:00 to 6:30
Wallace Emerson Park, West End of the Park
Make print editions from Wallace Emerson’s sidewalk reliefs. Bronze cast relief sculptures seed the surface of the Wallace Emerson Park Walk, contributed by curated artists: Vera Frenkel, Monica Tap, Dyan Marie, Lois Andison, Tony Sherman, Margaret Priest, John McKinnon, Ants Reigo, Blue Republic, Dionne Simpson, Snaige Sileika, Eldon Garnet, Guy Walter and Shelley Adler. The works provide a surface to create prints: cover the bronze with paper and rub with pencil, charcoal or crayon to create a print edition.
On May 22, we inked the surface of selected sculptures to print T-shirts.
All materials supplies – Free
Wallace Emerson Park is being redesigned and expanded. How We Live in Cities marks park sites with projects to encourage people to walk, enjoy and learn about the park. Schooled with fresh experiences, we encourage neighbours to become strong advocates for the kind of future park needed. Follow-up with Reimagine Galleria Open House located within the Galleria Mall: contribute to a presentation focused on what people would like to see as part of the new and expanded community centre and park.
ReDiscover Wallace Emerson Park
ParkSite WALK HERE projects in Wallace Emerson fostered close-looking, and encourage users to remember the park site as it now stands. Redevelopment plan of the park includes ideas to remove the hill and the award-winning architecture of Wallace Emerson Community Centre. A series of station plinths were placed in the park with to-do activities.
Walk Here in Wallace Emerson Park
mindful footfall
grass, bending, bowing
returning spring at the crest of the hill
look back see the path already taken
lookup
fully breath three times
past present future
now think of one true thing
remember your truth today
in a year from now when the hill is gone
when you are elderly and unable
look back and remember
standing at the crest of the hill
looking forward.
Description:Empathy for the large world of small creatures. Walk Here and see ants on the path, bees in the flowers, moths mistaking streetlights for the moon, the songs of crickets coming from the long grass. The project features local insects captured and released the same day with opportunities for close looking. It is a reminder to Bee Aware of our pollinators and the importance of parks, gardens and green-space as a shared habitat because insects, birds, animals and plants are people too. How We Live In Cities encourages green links and walking systems to connect habitats. A goal is to foster garden corridors linking parks, walkways, green-space and residential streets front yard gardens together to improve the experience of living in cities for insects, animals, plants and people. Make a Stake-holder, to mark your front-yard garden as part of a green corridor. Photograph and tag your marker with #ParkSite #SpotGardens
Location: West End Rail Path, Wallace Ave Bridge area, Toronto
Date: June 2, 2018
Time: 1:00 to 3:00
West End Railpath Banner Installation
BEE AWARE / BEE ALIVE
Encouragement to help create a bee habitat with connected green spaces via garden-making. With Bee Alive Banner installation, Flower Power hands-on flower-crown creating, children’s insect zoo with discussions of advancing the rail path green space and information about how to start a garden.
Bee Aware Image: Plants from the West End Rail Path, Campbell Street Park, Wallace Emerson Park, Davenport Diamond rail lands and Davenport Village Park .
More about How to start a garden: civicstudies.ca/spotgardens
100in1Day:
Location: West End Rail Path, Wallace Ave Bridge area
Date: Installed June 2, 2018
BEE SONG
The early hour’s
a distant flower.
The scorching dance
some noonday trance.
Oh, I am so
diligent in field, in ditch and dyke,
endusted and entrusted with
a little foot-purse pollen sac
to bring nature’s bounty back.
The apple, kiwi, rambutan,
the guava and the gravid pear,
the cheery cherry, lima bean,
all okra and the nectarine
will know
what my labours mean.
My day’s work is done.
I’m at the Bee Spot, see,
a draught of mead
drawn to my need.
I’m cozy here.
A lazing sun
toasts my bum.
A poem was written and read for Parksite at the West End Rail Path
by Jerry McGrath
CELEBRATE DAVENPORT VILLAGE PARK
PARKSITE at DAVENPORT VILLAGE PARK Saturday, JUNE 9, 11:30 -1:00 Celebrate Davenport Village Park, its community and the importance of the park as the neighbourhood centre. How We Live In Cities presents hands-on, family-friendly, art and ecology projects to enjoy. ALL FREE, ALL WELCOME
The park also offers a hopeful walking future with proposed links to the Green Line, the Metrolinx pathway, West End Rail Path, The Bentway and others. Parks, gardens, and walking paths lower our carbon footprint and improve the experience of living in cities for everyone: people, plants, animals and insects. The park offers opportunities for community building, place-making, better health and mindset.
CARD-YARD
Susan Tibaldi Park
July 22 – 28
A PULP family and friend activities with installations using recycled materials and community made Japanese lanterns installed Susan Tibaldi Park trees
Project lead by TEFU and Art Autonomy Network.
TEFU is a group of Japanese artists that were invited to Canada to participate in ParkSite. PULP event with ArtSite / ParkSite
About PULP Party
PARKSITE PARK FESTIVAL
Parksite summer-long programming culminates as a featured event at the BIG on Bloor Festival of Art and Culture with the ParkSite Festival Hub
July 21, 2018, 12:00 to 6:00
ParkSite on Bloor Street at Dufferin on the south side near the tennis courts with the BIG On Bloor Festival from Dufferin to Lansdowne
Participates List:
Plastic:
The Immortal Demon (or) Plastic is Scary
Participants can create a monster or “immortal demon” out of plastic trash they’ve found in the park or using the plastic bags and plastic bits supplied at the event. The creations are to be photographed and shared on social media.
Presented by: StopPlastics
No plastic in Parks. StopPlastics believes that disposable plastics must be eliminated because they are contaminating the Earth. A world free from plastic pollution is only possible by stopping the consumption of plastic. StopPlastics is a Toronto grassroots movement that advocates for a ban on plastic bags in Toronto as a first step to reducing plastic waste.
A Vital Little Plan for Dufferin Grove Park
Jane Jacobs said the best way to make a city lively is to let ordinary people make “vital little plans,” locally. If a plan seems promising, the city government can help by making service contracts that pay people to carry out good ideas, on a small scale. For 15 years, that’s what made Dufferin Grove Park so nice. Then the city government decided to fix what wasn’t broken. That hasn’t worked out. Can we make it fun again?
Presented by: CELOS
CELOS aims to conduct and disseminate research on the use of neighbourhood public parks and other public commons areas. CELOS establishes and operates a resource library to enable members of the public to deepen their knowledge about the use of neighbourhood public parks and other public commons areas.
Play Here
Leave your mark on BIG on Bloor with chalk drawings about ways to enjoy parks. Engage in games and activities you can continue at the park!
Presented by: How We Live In Cities
How We Live In Cities is a civic studies organization that responds to urban situations with ecology, culture and art initiatives. At the How We Live in Cities hub at the BIG on Bloor Festival, visitors can engage in discussions around expanding green spaces in the city while participating in gardening-inspired activities.
ReImagine Wallace Emerson’s Park
Contribute ideas and suggestions and drawings towards the redevelopment of Wallace Emerson Park. Festival visitors are invited to create a drawing about how they imagine using Wallace Emerson Park, and the various features that could be implemented in the future to improve the park for the whole community.
The Reimagine Galleria Community Space is a community asset whereby residents can come to learn about the redevelopment proposal, share thoughts about the planned new park.
Presented by: ReImagine Galleria and Elad Canada
Elad Canada strives for excellence in its mid- and high-rise condominium developments and master-planned communities. Best known for its visionary approach at the award-winning Emerald City master-planned community in Toronto, Elad Canada also leads the way with innovative projects in Montreal at the Cite Nature master-planned community and recently completed conversion project at the historic Nordelec building on the Lachine canal.
For over 20 years, Freed has been changing the face of the city with its unique brand of design-based development. The company was the driving force behind the remarkable transformation of King Street West, turning it in just a few short years into one of the city’s most desirable neighbourhoods. A Freed property is more than just a building – it’s a lifestyle hub. It a place where people live near where they work and play, in buildings that make a true design statement. Freed’s portfolio includes hospitality ventures, resort communities and their commercial spaces are home to some of the cities best retail tenants.
Origami Lantern Workshop
In this workshop, participants became acquainted with Japanese culture and the art of origami by transforming a flat sheet of paper into a finished lantern box through a variety of folding and sculpting techniques. At sunset, the lanterns were installed along Bloor Street and throughout Susan Tibaldi Park and Wallace Emerson Park.
Presented by: TEFU and Art Autonomy Network
TEFU is a group of Japanese artists and sculptors, consisting of four MA students and two teachers of Tokyo University of Fine Art. Emiko Kato is a curator of this project and also the director of Art Autonomy Network; a not-for-profit organization for building the network among artists and relative people both domestic and overseas, which is based in Tokyo. AAN tries to improve the circumstance of contemporary art scenes surrounding art relative situations so that people can access a variety of art activities for educational purposes.
P.S. I Love Parks
Visitors are invited to learn about events taking place in parks, access resources around how to start a Park Friends group, and how to host activities in their parks such as campfires movies and picnics. You will also get to use your hands and sculpt what you love or is missing in your local parks out of plasticine.
Presented by: Park People
Park People supports and mobilizes people to help them activate the power of parks to improve the quality of life in cities across Canada.
Park Accessibility Ramp Awareness
Festival participants are welcomed and encouraged to paint a keychain to help promote accessibility awareness in their local parks. StopGap Foundation’s ramp keychains are created from the repurposed end cuts of their accessibility ramps. These wooden keychains are sanded, painted/primed, and branded with the use of a C&C laser cutter at the hands of the StopGap team.
Presented by: StopGap
StopGap Foundation is raising awareness and removing barriers to create a world where every person can access parks and every space! Through StopGap’s Community Ramp Projects and Ramps on Request program, single step businesses are provided with access ramps to eliminate barriers in the built environment and create inclusive spaces we can all live, work and play in.
PARKSITE PUBLICATION
Made possible with support from:
TD Friends of the Environment, BIG: Bloor Improvement Group,
Canada Works, CELOS, and ReImagine Galleria
More information contact: dyan@dyanmarie.com / 647.973.2349
