Will Kwan, an associate professor in the Department of Arts, Culture and Media, has finished a public art installation that challenges ideas of ownership and public space.
The installation, called A Park for All, is part of Evergreen’s Don River Valley Park Art Program. It consists of 75 short sentences painted in 30-inch high letters. The sentences stretch for a half-kilometre along the industrial retaining walls of Toronto’s Don River, from Riverdale Park to Gerrard Street East and from Dundas Street to Queen Street East.
The sentences encapsulate community relationships to urban spaces and parks. They include: “A park for residents. A park for visitors. A park for insiders. A park for outsiders.” and “A park for the mindful. A park for the modest. A park for the vain.”
Kwan was inspired by the complexity of the Don River Valley and its surrounding communities. The area includes stretches of parkland blending both urban and industrial, public housing and affluent neighborhoods as well as old infrastructure and new development. The installation will be up for the next five years.
