Eat & Drink
Ontario's Greenbelt transported to Toronto's harbourfront
From now until June 2011 the Harbourfront Centre will be hosting a large-scale outdoor photo exhibit that explores the Greenbelt through the eyes of eight up-and-coming Ontario photographers. Beyond Imaginings: Eight artists encounter Ontario's Greenbelt examines the land through three thematic lenses: Natural Beauty, Working the Land and People of the Greenbelt.
Quick Greenbelt re-cap: In 2005, 1.8 million acres of Ontario countryside (including the Niagara Escarpment, Oak Ridges Moraine and Rouge Park) was legally and permanently protected. The purpose was to "protect key environmentally sensitive land and farmlands from urban development and sprawl." Over 50% of the protected area is farmland, representing about 7,000 farms.
The exhibit has been commissioned and curated by the Harbourfront Centre, and I went to check it out on Friday morning.
It is the first outdoor exhibit of its size and scale that I've seen in Toronto - 72 large-scale photographs in all. And I happened to be there on a gorgeous sunny day. Following the path of photos through the Harbourfront Centre grounds and down along the water made for quite the morning. I have little doubt that the exhibit will get lots of (well deserved) foot traffic this summer.
Some of the highlights for me were the "Natural Beauty" themed photos by Rob MacInnis. He focused exclusively on farm animals, and I thought his photos had the greatest initial visual impact of the bunch. He photographs "farm animals with the same intensity of a high fashion photo shoot."
Also channeling the "Natural Beauty" of the Greenbelt was Keesic Douglas who offers up a great series that examines various locations along the Holland River from the perspective of a canoe.
Focusing on those "Working the Land" Meera Margaret Singh has a beautiful series of portraits. They have such an ethereal quality to them - like "George" taking a break by laying down in the apple orchard that he works in.
The exhibit runs through June 2011, but will be updated later this year with new photographs taken during the summer and fall. To make the photos available to those who can't make the exhibit, select images and interviews with the authors can be found online at the Harbourfront blog and website. It's definitely worth spending some time checking out the exhibit next time you're by the harbourfront. And maybe it'll even inspire a day-trip or two this summer to see the land with your own eyes.
Lead photo by Becky Comber, others by the author.
Discussion
9 Comments
Sort By Oldest First / Newest First
Subscribe
http://www.thestar.com/canada2020/article/106702
It's not where people come from, it's how many come here every year. You either want to keep immigration at the current 250,000+ annual level, or you want to stop urban sprawl, and increased freshwater use and garbage production--you can't have it both ways. The current quarter million a year 'target' only really started under Mulroney, but has continued to this day. The banks and real estate, construction and developers' lobbies want to nearly double the intake, to around 400,000 annually. That means roughly 160,000 more people per year (up from 100,000) settling in the GTA--just where do you think they'll go? Yes, Canada is a 'nation of immigrants,' but this rate of population growth has severe environmental consequences.
But, then, it DID stop urban sprawl and Toronto condo developers began building 3-bedroom family units.
Oh, wait, no, that didn't happen. My bad.
Canada is mostly barren land with nobody on it. The GTA is a mess, but majority of other Canadian cities have vast expanse of land yet to fill up. You don;t even consider that a majority of new immigrants venture else way because there is better prospects for jobs, securing a decent place to live etc.
Blaming immigrants is a stupid and tired argument, everybody here is one, and thus should keep there mouths shut. People continually discredit the impact and contributions immigrants give to the Canadian economy. I cant even imagine what Toronto would be life if it didn't have such a rich number of people from every nook of the globe, eeek This place would be a dump.