CROSSROADS

Toronto Public Library: Mount Dennis Branch, September 3 - December 8, 2024
Part of Toronto Arts Council’s Artists in the Library Program
Presented on the façade of the Mount Dennis Toronto Public Library, Crossroads is a series of photographic works that speak to the neighbourhood's long history with Kodak, film processing and manufacturing and the transformation and development of Mount Dennis as an urban center for local residents and industry. Crossroads intertwines analog and digital images of the neighbourhood's past, using archival documents from the Kodak Canada Corporate Archive at Toronto Metropolitan University’s Archives and Special Collections, alongside images taken by Jessica Thalmann and Eva Kolcze. Using optics, film emulsion degradation, collage and cutting techniques, the works accentuate the dynamic interplay of storefront signs, industrial buildings, apartment complexes and other sites within the Mount Dennis area. Currently sitting at the crossroads of gentrification as the area is developed for luxury housing in response to the Eglinton Crosstown TTC line, the artwork aims to honour the past and reveal a dynamic, lively neighbourhood in transition.

This public exhibition is presented by the Toronto Arts Council’s Artists in the Library Program in conjunction with Toronto Public Library, and supported by the Mount Dennis BIA.

Additional programming is planned to animate the exhibition that will include a series of analog photography and film workshops for community members that are free and open to all. Programming includes a Neighborhood Photograph Walk, a Lumen & Cyanotype workshop, a Polaroid Lift workshop exclusively for the Youth Hub and a Drawing on Film workshop accompanied by an exhibition celebration of all the artmaking done by community members.