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Toronto swimming pool is being totally transformed by washed up meatballs

If you're searching for something to do this weekend that's safe, outdoors and entertaining, look no further than the massive art projection being shown on the wall of the Donald D. Summerville Olympic Pool, courtesy of BigArtTO

The city-wide public art celebration offers free access to over 200 hours of temporary public artworks projected onto local buildings and landmarks from Sept. 26 to Dec. 5, and The Bentway and The Waterfront BIA are putting on a three-part series called The Essentials: Art and Urban Recovery as a part of the initiative. 

The projection showing at 1867 Lake Shore Blvd. this weekend is just one part of this series, and it's called Life Preserver

Created by artist Alvin Luong, Life Preserver is a 15-minute projection that runs on a continuous loop showing a beach scene in which a pedestrian discovers a giant bundle of meatballs that has washed ashore.

"The bundle appears purposeful in its assembly yet its function is unknown. We watch as a pedestrian tries to make sense of the bundle as they grasp it, look through its seams, and place it upon their body," reads a description of the project.

"Life Preserver continues the artist's curiosity into the physical and historical properties of meatballs eaten in the food cultures of Asia Pacific."

According to the description, the project portrays the bundle of meatballs as a makeshift water flotation device that makes its way to the shores of Toronto, making a statement about the fact that "meatballs are characteristically buoyant in liquids, such as soups, and have been integrated into the various food cultures of Asia Pacific through generations of sea migration between different shores of the region."

Long's work was inspired by the way people across different geographies, histories, and nations seek out the essentials of food, shelter, and mobility, and you can catch it tonight and Saturday night from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. 

"Life Preserver is produced in a period when access to these essentials is in a deepening crisis," notes the description, "as routines to life have been halted and borders have been closed."

Lead photo by

Brad Bradford


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