Bloor Parkette

My name is Susan Schelle. I’m part of a pair of artists; the other artist is Mark Gomes, who collaborated and designed the park that you’re looking at. The plaza design with its large checkerboard pattern is based on the game board. And the dominos are part of the game, which are the elements that are sitting on the ground that are in play.

I think the game board was decided on because a game board or a game of dominos is universal. It’s not restricted to one particular ethnic group. And the area of Spadina and Bloor is very diverse in its audience. Not only does it have people who are part of U of T, University of Toronto, but you also have Portugese, Italian, Chinese, all within that area. And we wanted to recognize something that had a commonality which would be a game of dominos.

The rest of the park when you look at the area that contains actually the fans from the streetcars - because the streetcars go underneath this particular park - we decided to turn the grate system into a pond. And we have these scattered water-jet cut aluminum leaves scattered over the surface much like they would be if you saw a pond. And the leaves themselves are replicated on the back of the dominos so there is a narrative between the leaves that are on top the grate that represent the pond and the leaves that are on the back of the dominos. And these leaves are the leaves that would be along the lakeshore of Lake Ontario when we had Carolinean forests.

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