WALK HERE projects, destinations and events as a way to better health and mindset. Walking as a way to foster green, clean, safe and civil communities. Walking as an activity to notice the day-to-day, take stock, make improvements, celebrate successes.
WALK HERE, Civic Studies projects at Wallace Emerson Park, are independent artist projects by Dyan Marie or are in collaboration with DIG IN, Transcultural Exchange, Ontario College of Art, Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Arts, PMA Landscape Architects, the City of Toronto, Dupont Projects, Urban Surface, Wallace Emerson Community Centre, Friends of Wallace Emerson Park, the Dupont West Community and others.
- Walk Here Master Plan
- Contained
- Walking
- Overpass with OCAD
- Constellation
- DIG IN
- The Tile Project
- Park Pavers
- Decorating Wallace Emerson Trees
- Wallace Emerson Community Centre Mural
- Bird Woman
- Accidental Gardens
Walk Here Master Plan
2003 – 06: A series of public art efforts that encourages the act of walking by creating walkways, walking destinations and events.
Walk Here’s art embedded walking system won the City of Toronto’s Green and Beautiful Award.
Spacing Magazine, Fall 2006
Gallery Under Foot, “… mobilized community residents to build this dream, titled Walk Here.” – Sarah Hood
Contained
Garbage – what it contains, how it’s packaged, its chemical make-up, consuming and recycling ideas and observations, appreciation of design and shape:
Community members were asked to contribute discarded pop bottles, water bottles, soap containers as a starting point for this public/community artwork. Garbage containers were filled with recycled glass, mirrors and cement then cut in half and installed in the Walk Here walkway.
The sculptures appear as beautiful reminders: fossil-like, they reference historical pottery and the most attractive recent design. They introduced discussions regarding the liquid they contained, that becomes part of the watershed, all liquid making its way to Lake Ontario and into a globalized water system.
Walking Walk Here
Local children’s drawings that considered neighbourhood surroundings, environmental issues and ways to use parks were developed as stainless steel cut-outs and installed in the Walk Here walkway.
WALK HERE Railway Overpass Bridge
Civic Studies, DIG IN members and Adam Giambrone, then Ward 18 Councillor with the City of Toronto, negotiated an agreement to safeguard Walk Here property rights to the land end-ending Lappin Ave. at the railway lines. The intention was to link the WALK HERE plan from Wallace Emerson Park to Campbell Park providing the rapidly expanding development directly across from the Campbell Park but separated by the track, park access. The bridge was proposed as a step toward reconnecting a neighbourhood intersected by 3 sets of railway lines
Ontario College of Art and Design, Public Art Class with Eldon Garnet and Civic Studies developed a class project to develop design ideas for a pedestrian bridge from Lappin Avenue to Campbell Park.
As part of a WALK HERE, DIG IN, festival, 2003 at west end of Wallace Emerson Park, festival goers created pedestrian bridge models.
Bridge Making: a structural exploration workshop with recycled cardboard, lead by Bruce Ward.
Ideas For Bridges, played in clay, a family event provided by the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Arts.
Constellation
Bronze cast relief sculptures seed the surface of the Walk Here walkway based on drawings contributed from participating artist who have their studios near-by: Vera Frenkel, Monica Tap, Dyan Marie, Lois Andison, Tony Shermann, 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 rubbings, cover the bronze with paper and rub with pencil, charcoal or crayon to create a print edition.
DIG IN
DIG IN began as a fiction in 2002 by Dyan Marie, as an acronym to use when attempting to secure institution attention for local concerns at a time when Wallace Emerson area had pronounced problems. DIG IN was realized as an urban intervention artist project and a cultural and community initiative.
“Community and Cultural Ideas Master Plan” was focused on the idea of walking as a way to animate the area, put more eyes on the park and street, meet neighbours. the plan was exhibited and community-wide meetings at Wallace Emerson Community Center, Perth Dupont Library and the Portuguese Sporting Club.
2003 DIG IN: Dupont Improvement Group, became a community group established to support the walking plan and to develop on-going community building efforts. See www.digin.ca
The Tile Project, Transcultural Exchange
100 individual tiles made by 100 artists, representing 40 different nations and installed in 20 countries.
A Transcultural Exchange, Walk Here installation in Wallace Emerson Park transculturalexchange.org
Photo Tag – June 2006 Wallace Emerson Park
Park Pavers
Cast cement pavers made for Wallace Emerson Park, created at Dupont Projects
Seasonal Decoration
Trees in Wallace Emerson Park
Wallace Emerson Mural
Students from Bloor CI contributed drawings of local flowers, selected images were made into stencils, spray painted onto translucent corrugated plastic and installed as room dividers at Wallace Emerson Community Centre.
Bird Woman
Bird Woman is a re-enactment of a woman who is occasionally seen in Wallace Emerson Park. Hostile, ill, poor, she drags a cart of stale bread through the park, walking to the top of the Wallace Emerson Park hill. With each step an expanding flock of seagulls surround and follow her. 
At the hill summit, expectant birds hover inches from her body, meeting her eye to eye and for a moment, she flies. 2014
Accidental Gardens
Image: documentation of plants that cling to the chain-link fence on the south side of Wallace Emerson Park: trees, vines, wild flowers, weeds, fruit, seeds and berries. Used as source for a Bloordale banner installed on Bloor Street, streetlight pole and included in Asphalt Garden, The BIG on Bloor Festival and Nine A publication. 2015
Joy
Because of this, and what if, and despite everything
signs at Wallace Emerson Park
