Flowers for Thorncliffe Park

Description

Located in Thorncliffe Park, this public garden is part of the exhibition’s work outside of Union Station and presents an effort to use arts funding to develop, create, and support long-term public art projects that benefit communities and can be given to and taken over by artists and community members after the end of the exhibition and ArtworxTO. This is also the first public art commission by Waard Ward, a collective that collaborates in floristry, decolonial research, and newcomer support led by Syrian florist Abd Al-Mounim, community organizers and newcomers Hanen Nanaa and Shoruk Alsakni, educator Laura Ritacca, curator and educator Patricia Ritacca, and artist Petrina Ng. 

Located at the East York Town Centre, the garden is envisioned as a gift to Thorncliffe Park, a culturally diverse community largely comprising recent immigrants living in high-rise apartment buildings. Launched simultaneously with a sister rose garden at University of Toronto Scarborough campus commissioned by the Doris McCarthy Gallery, the garden features historic Damask rose varieties named after the city of Damascus in Syria.  

Photos by Darren Rigo