Client: Waterfront Toronto

Overview

Site Specific – Sumach Street, Toronto, Ontario, commissioned by Waterfront Toronto
Corten & Stainless Steel, Lighting Components

Goals

For Site Specific, we have endeavored to create a visually complex artwork that traces the history, geography and habitation of the site location (Sumach Street at Eastern Avenue in Toronto) from pre-history to present day. This concept is presented as a timeline-based visual narrative via two complimentary layers of delicate and evocative silhouette imagery cut from Corten and Stainless Steel.

The central focus of the timeline narrative is the historical significance of the site as the home of Lucie and Thornton Blackburn – refugee former slaves from Kentucky – who started Toronto’s first taxicab company in 1837 and whose lifelong struggle against slavery was an inspiration to many.