Frontier | Part 1

Hello, my name's John Dixon and I'm the artist who designed and created "Frontier" on the Toronto West Rail Path. "Frontier" is made up of 4 large steel structures that are evenly distributed between Bloor and Dundas Street. They're roughly 200 meters apart. I wanted them large enough that you'd see them from the Go trains going past and I wanted them evenly spaced so that they kind of create a rhythm as you go past in the train.

"Frontier" came about through a reaction to the site, the nature of the site, the fact that it's long, linear and thin. And it's a reaction to the buildings behind the works, the industrial structures and the industrial character of the site. And so I started thinking about what materials could I use to make these things as big as possible and as cheap as possible. So I started thinking about mesh. You can cover a large area and there isn't that much material, there's a lot of space. So then I started thinking, "OK, steel mesh”, and then how do you make that more stable and weather proof, so the galvanizing came in. And I like the idea of the galvanizing because it's a lot like the industrial materials in the factories. There's a lot of mesh over windows and galvanized steel fences, so there was that kind of relationship happening.

How I imagined you experiencing these works is to first see them as you're moving along the trail you see them in the distance these kind of long, thin, tall structures that you can't really discern until you get right up beside them. And then their forms reveal themselves.  And then as you're passing one you will notice there's another one. And the same thing happens. So you can experience them in any order but it's either from north to south or south to north.

Want to hear more? Check out Part 2.

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