Since 1990, designers, craftspeople, performing artists and visual artists have created living installations across the Harbourfront Centre site that challenge traditional ideas about gardening.
For garden plant lists, please visit the Information Desk or Main Gallery in the York Quay Centre, 235 Queens Quay West.
Curator: Patrick Macaulay, Head, Visual Art, Harbourfront Centre
Photography: Patrick Macaulay & Marlee Choo
Daisy World
Garden 1
Daisy World (2004)
Sandra Rechico
This is a perennial garden full of blooms with composite daisy-like forms. There's a ridiculous sort of simplicity in daisies; they evoke memories of grandmothers, forgotten songs, childhood fields, temporary adornments and adolescent love predictions. Daisies are full of simple exuberance and honesty.
Sandra Rechico is an installation artist who lives and works in Toronto. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and abroad. Rechico has been long active in the Toronto Arts community through her involvement with Open Studio, Mercer Union and Red Head Gallery.
Garden 2
A Butterfly Garden (2004)
Michael MacDonald
In the mythology of many native tribes, butterflies are afforded great respect as representing the spirits of the medicine people who have passed on. In fact, a butterfly garden is also a medicine garden. The native plants that butterflies use have traditional medicine uses: aspirin comes from spiraea and valium from valerian. Yarrow, echinacea, liatris, and asters are all-important in traditional medicine.
Mike MacDonald transformed his individual approach to his Mi'kmaq heritage into visual arts, working in video installation and photography as well as planting butterfly gardens on the grounds of art galleries & museums across Canada and in Europe. He was born in Sydney, Nova Scotia in 1941, and died in Halifax in 2006.
A Butterfly Garden
China Bower
Garden 3
China Bower (2004)
Liz Parkinson
The garden paradise is a dream of perfection. It is a glimpse of the world individually selected to include only those aspects most desired. It is a focus of unattainable longing in its perpetual bloom. Within this garden lies a white china bower, drawn as a fragment of a larger pattern of feminized space. The bower echoes the painted foliage on its shattered surface and the rose bushes it reaches towards. Nestled within a verdant carpet of fragrant foliage, the shards of the bower settle. The plants in this garden were chosen from John Parkinson's 1629 garden manual A Garden of Pleasant Flowers: Paradisi in sole Paradisium Terrestris. This first garden manual describes 1000 plants that were available in England and discusses the place, the time, the names, and the virtues of each. Many of these plants are familiar in our own gardens, having been brought to Canada by settlers as reminders of home.
Liz Parkinson's father's grandfather's grandmother gardened on Toronto Island. Liz Parkinson's mother remembers the places, the names, the times, and the virtues of the china found in her own garden.
Garden 4
Planting a Birdhouse (1999)
Dan Nuttall & Frank Infante
A multi-stemmed "real" forest brackets a representational steel "forest" in which the form of the birdhouse is suggested. A duality emerges as the tree is revealed as both "natural" house/home and the source of wood for building birdhouses. A simple question emerges: are birdhouses habitat production or habitat consumption?
Linda A. Irvine, OALA is a landscape architect and Manager of Urban Design at the Town of Markham. Dan Nuttall is a Sessional Instructor at the University of Guelph where he is studying the sustainable integration of human and bird communities. Frank Infante, P. Eng. is a civil Engineer for Butler Building (Canada) where he is involved in the design and erection of steel structures. All plants represent genera native to North America and function as bird habitat either providing hiding cover, nesting material or food.
Planting a Birdhouse
Return from Nature
Garden 5
Return from Nature (1999)
Bob Wilkie
As a mariner, I have sailed to many destinations. As an artist - like many other artists - I tend to collect things. My hoarding habits are most acute as I walk the shores of whichever body of water my ship happens to sail on. Here in Toronto, Lake Ontario offers up some oddly fascinating bric-a-brac. It also helps that most of the existing shoreline around our city is landfill, especially the Leslie Street Spit. The "rubble" included in this garden was all once a part of the city. Their inclusion speaks to the force of nature and the dichotomy between it and technology; a concern for the environment; the creative impulse to transform everyday objects into aesthetic ones; and the wonder I experience both on the water and on its shores.
Toronto painter Bob Wilkie was born on Cape Breton Island.
Garden 6
Changing Channels (2000)
Janet Morton
"Television? The word is half Latin and half Greek. No good can come from it." — C.P. Scott (1932)
"The world crashes into my living room. Television made me what I am." — David Byrne (1985)
In my experience, the word "garden" is more often a verb than a noun. Garden is something to do. Each TV inside this box is a separate gardening channel, a spectator sport. TV Garden is something to watch.
Janet Morton is a Toronto Island artist who knits large, recycles relentlessly, has planted nearly a million trees and doesn't own a television.
Changing Channels
Fancy Plants
Garden 7
Fancy Plants (2000)
Sarah Quinton & John Armstrong
Our garden plays on some of the conventions of European formal gardens that use picturesque frames and borders to highlight individual specimen plants. These plants were chosen for their architectural qualities, with as much emphasis on the forms and textures of the foliage as on the flowers; they tend to be showy, sculptural and grand (if not downright weird) members of the plant kingdom. They have been used extensively as design sources in the decorative, applied and fine arts.
Since 1980, Toronto-based John Armstrong has been exhibiting his work in solo and group exhibitions throughout Canada and in Europe. He has long used images of cultivated flowers in his paintings and sculptures that engage a number of precedents in the decorative arts. Sarah Quinton has been exhibiting her work since 1985. Her art is informed by various commercial textile designs, wallpaper patterns, medieval tapestries, historical design compendia, architectural ornaments and living botanical specimens. The artists wish to thank John McKinnon for fabricating the trellis.
Garden 8
Post Glacial (2005)
Robert Wiens
Post Glacial is a planting of indigenous small trees, shrubs and plants native to the northern shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario. As the last glaciers retreated, plants from the unaffected areas of the southern Appalachians made their way north to form a vast continuous broadleaf woodland. Much of this forest has been removed or broken up by land clearing, and a kind of intermediate urban driven glaciation has taken place. This garden allows the return of a small selection of those ancient wild plants to take root once again along these shores.
Robert Wiens is a sculptor who, in the past seven years has also been painting full scale watercolours of old growth pine trees.
Post Glacial
Swamped
Garden 9
Swamped (2000)
Brad Copping & Sue Rankin
Swamped is a reflection on the "marginal" land which exists at the waters edge. It combines the image of a natural lakeshore with its sand grasses and bog plants, and the human use of a lakeshore with its boats and docks to conjure a garden. A garden developed, but overgrown and reclaimed. An old boat floats the idea; pointing back to another time and to an older use of the Harbourfront site, and contrasting the hot dry environment of the glass studio behind it.
Susan Rankin & Brad Copping are glass blowers and gardeners living and working from their home outside Apsley Ontario. Both are alumni of the glass studio at Harbourfront Centre.
Garden 10
The Living Stitch (2005)
Alia Toor & Farheen Haq
Shisha means 'little glass' in Hindi. It is unique to the Indian subcontinent as a textile art form. Like a richly decorated piece of fabric, our garden emulates its intense colours, strong patterns and intricacies through the placement and palette of flowers. We see the Living Stitch as a union of the spirit of the Islamic garden and the beauty of the mirror work. In contrast to the modern Western garden, which is customarily a place for extrovertism, the Islamic garden is introverted: a mental and spiritual experience. Here, shisha embroidered forms are integrated with the principles of the Islamic garden and give the viewer a clear yet limitless space for imagination.
Farheen Haq is a video and photo-based artist who has exhibited her work across North America. For more info on her work, visit farheenhaq.com. Alia Toor is a media educator and an artist who is currently exploring issues of religion, sexuality and language within an Islamic context.
The Living Stitch
Eden vulgaris
Garden 11
Eden vulgaris (2000)
Lily Yung
Like plants in a garden, a work of art begins as an idea. Given time, a little nourishment and care, it will develop and bloom. The Chinese character for garden is , pronounced "yu'en" in cantonese. Into this garden, the eyes wander from blossom to blossom, through leaves and branches, the nose takes in the fragrance and one is filled with wonderment at all this beauty. Over there some beads form a circle - 
- also pronounced "yu'en". It symbolizes wholeness and harmony, essential for a happy co-existence of all things in the universe.
Toronto-based artist Lily Yung makes contemporary jewellery using mostly non-precious materials and loves to watch plants grow. She wishes to thank John McKinnon for fabricating the trellis.
Garden 12A
The Unnatural Garden (1995)
Gene Threndyle
GRUMPY GARDEN; TORTURED TOPIARY; DON’T BOTHER TO SMELL THE ROSES
Naturalness is an ambiguous thing. It's very hard for us to imagine and even harder to actually find. Gardens are idealized nature, and never more so than in the "natural garden." The Unnatural Garden may be egregious and vain, but it's trying at least to be honest.
Gene Threndyle is an artist and gardener living in Toronto. He builds, plants and maintains both public and private gardens including the native plant beds and the Marsh Fountain in Dufferin Grove Park.
The Unnatural Garden
The Wrecker's Rockery
Garden 12B
The Wrecker's Rockery (1996)
Gene Threndyle
I live on Shaw Street. I have a house with a little garden. I work for a demolition company. Life is good here, there are lots of buildings to demolish. Still, I miss the little village where I was born. I miss the trees and the rocks. In my little garden I go back there. That rubble was from Sudbury Street. This was a sidewalk made in 1965 and the tree, that grew outside a motel in Etobicoke.
Gene Threndyle is an artist and gardener living in Toronto. He builds, plants and maintains both public and private gardens including the native plant beds and the Marsh Fountain in Dufferin Grove Park.
Garden 13
Play and delight, the possibilities are boundless (2003)
Ted Rettig
Many artists use play as part of creative exploration. Play with the elements of visual language, forms, shapes, sizes, textures colours; also play with ideas, images, thoughts, feelings, intuitions, to bring about allusions and the possibility of emotional resonance in the work. My long experience with sculptural language was central in planning this garden of diverse elements.
Ted Rettig has been exhibiting since 1974. He lives in Toronto and teaches in the Department of Art at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.
Play and delight, the possibilities are boundless
Play
Garden 14
Play (2001)
Shawn Kerwin
The theatre is ultimately ethereal. It can be a strong force that evaporates when the performance has ended. For myself as a designer, it begins with a script. Trying to capture the spirit of a script is like trying to grab the wind. The search is both invigorating and terrifying, not always in that order. Can we be carried away on a breath of air?
Shawn Kerwin lives in Toronto and has designed sets and costumes for the theatre across Canada, in the United States and in England.
Garden 15
An Evening in the Russian Hanging Garden (2001)
Sean Breaugh
This is a garden designed to evoke the wistful splendour of a Checkovian evening. The whimsy of the hanging structure is balanced by the expectation of the empty child's chair positioned to watch over the water. The birch, the thyme, the wild flowers recall textures from the Russian countryside. This design is inspired by and dedicated to the memory of our friend Natalia Butko: born of Russian parents, original member of the National Ballet of Canada, Wardrobe Mistress of the Canadian Opera Company and devout gardener.
Toronto-based set and costume designer Sean Breaugh has worked with The Shaw Festival, Soulpepper Theatre Company, The Citadel Theatre and The Grand Theatre among many others. He has also worked on numerous film and television projects in Canada and abroad. Special thanks to Philip Kerr.
An Evening in the Russian Hanging Garden
In Advance of a Sting
Garden 16
In Advance of a Sting (2008)
Ed Pien and Johannes Zits
Sometimes even the most beautiful and seductive can also have a sting. In this garden, a swarm of ready-made bees from the dollar store hovers over flora with contrasting elements: light juxtaposing dark, soft with hard, and feathery against thorny.
Ed Pien received his BFA from UWO and MFA from York University. His extensive exhibition history includes the Drawing Centre, New York; La Biennale de Montreal; Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico City; The Goethe Institute, Berlin as well as an invited residency artist at the Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester this summer. Pien is represented by Birch Libralato, Toronto, Pierre-François Ouellette Art Contemporain, Montreal and Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague. Johannes Zits is a Toronto based artist whose practice flows freely among video, photography, collage and painting. He has exhibited across Canada as well as in Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Taipei, and Amsterdam.
Garden 17
Plato’s Drive-In (2008)
Lyla Rye
At the movies, we gaze into the lights and shadows on the screen to be transported into another world. As in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, these sights are but shadow images of the things themselves. The plants screening at this outdoor cinema, are cultivated native plants, synthetic replicas of nature. Unlike Plato, I court the shadows, embrace imitation, and invite you to Plato’s Drive-In.
Lyla Rye is an installation artist based in Toronto. She received a BFA from York University and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She has exhibited nationally & internationally since 1989. Recent solo exhibitions include Interplay, Herrmann & Wagner, Berlin (2007), Hopscotch, Agnes Etherington Gallery, Kingston & Esplanade Gallery, Medicine Hat (2006 & 07); Flesh and Blood, Cambridge Public Galleries, Ontario (2003). Internationally, Rye has exhibited in San Francisco, New York, Adelaide, Australia, Paris, & Berlin.
Plato's Drive-In
Raked: A Garden for Harbourfront
Garden 18
Raked: A Garden for Harbourfront (2001)
Jeannie Thib & Bruce Holland
Raked presents a stage with planted deck, curtain and legs. The decorative open fretwork of the curtain is derived from a textile design representing stylized flower and vegetation. This partition divides the stage, suggesting a curtain/trellis from the front of the house and a theatre flat/fence when viewed from backstage.
Bruce Holland is a bricoleur who works in fabrication, restoration, faux finishing and as a scenic artist for theatre and film. Jeannie Thib is a visual artist who also works as a scenic artist for theatre. She has exhibited across Canada and internationally.
Garden 19
Green Man Mummers (2001)
Shadowland Theatre/Brad Harley & Anne Barber
The Green Man is the inspiration and the intelligence from within the dark forest. He represents the irrepressible life cycle (life, death and rebirth). He is the guardian and revealer of the mysteries of the earth - the male counterpart to the Great Mother venerated since the beginnings of time. The Green Man is depicted in sculpture in English medieval churches and in theatre as the Jack-in-the-Green in mummer's plays and May Day celebrations.
Shadowland is a Dora-award-winning theatre company based on Toronto Island since 1983. We are "urban mummers" making theatre from the small mysteries of everyday life and the shadows of the night's dreams. With thanks to Bie Engelen and to Clayton Harrison, Forestry Department (Toronto Island).
Green Man Mummers
Urban Pastoral
Garden 20
Urban Pastoral (2001)
Ben Smit
A garden, by definition, is not natural. It is a formalistic construct with a modicum of external that will always be present. The images of the water fowl refer to the garden’s location at Harbourfront. The use of topiary, a traditional, if somewhat extreme gardening technique, acknowledges the gardener as control freak.
Ben Smit is a sculptor, carpenter and sometimes gardener. He has exhibited across Canada, including Toronto's Sculpture Garden and has work permanently installed at Harbourfront Centre as well as the Windsor Sculpture Park. The 15 foot by 15 foot front garden of his Toronto home contains 15 different rose bushes as well as a pollared ash tree. In the back yard grow 3 espaliered fruit trees guarded by a topiary dog. Special Thanks to John McEwen and The Hillsdale Forge & Iron Works.
Garden 21
Ode (2003)
Anne O'Callaghan
With this garden I wanted to play to the specifics of the site, and at the same time create a place that enhanced the changing seasons both visually and fragrantly. The black of Enwave Theatre, the red bricks of the Powerplant and the shape of Grecian Urns become backdrops and props for the main players - the plants. The fragrance of both plants and shrubs, may trigger happy memories for those that wander by. As the plants move through their life cycle, the shape of the trees and the colour and scent of the flora will punctuate the seasons. A small garden — a place to pause, breathe in the fragrance and smile.
Anne O'Callaghan is a Toronto based visual artist, who has created temporary and permanent site-specific works in Ontario and Asia. The artist wishes to thank Tredegar Kennedy for fabricating the urns, and Melanie Page of TERRA FIRMA for advice on plants.
Ode
Whirligig Garden
Garden 22
Whirligig Garden (2002)
Libby Hague
The garden integrates whirligig figures to evoke childhood fears and the desire for security. Demonic clowns, their arms reaching out, chase the children from a frightening, twisted part of the garden. They must cross a river of iris and amsonia to reach their mother who waits in the tender garden on the other side. The visual opposition of frightening vs. tender plants will be echoed with sounds and smells and emphasized with light. The terrifying garden will have dry rustling sounds, chaotic shapes and violent colours. In the tender garden, the mother holds a small bell on her outstretched arms to summon her children. This apparently happy ending is precarious - the ominous and twisted garden rises insistently, fearfully framing our view of happiness.
Libby Hague is a visual artist working in a wide variety of media, usually incorporating figures and narrative. The Artist would like to acknowledge the support of Open Studio, Toronto and Serge Fortin.
Garden 23
Toronto Island Construction Site (2002)
Michael Davey & Delwyn Higgens
Toronto Island has always been a site for development plans, large and small. Of late, the island's waterways have become home to an expanding beaver population that has undertaken its own form of land management. In all this activity, what is never in doubt is the industriousness of the animal, and it is this quality that inspired our founding fathers to choose the beaver as Canada's emblem. But, if we work hard we also play hard, and hockey is our leisure time passion. We give a nod to hockey legend, Dick Irvin Sr. who, reputedly, collected hockey sticks for use in his garden as supports for his prized tomato vines. We have forgone the tomatoes in favour of raspberries as these flourish on the island. On the blades of the hockey sticks are drawings showing the succession in evolution of community homes from wall tent to cottage.
Michael Davey is a sculptor and fine arts instructor based in Toronto. His work has been exhibited and collected across Canada and abroad.Delwyn Higgens is a freelance arts writer, curator and artist who loves to garden.
Toronto Island Construction Site
