A delicious bite of Scarborough life
New View photo contest drew 3,700 uplifting pics of much-maligned burb
Behold the infamous and iconic Warden subway station patty. Already much heralded in Toronto’s pop culture and heated social media debates, the beloved beef patty from Fahmee Bakery is now the subject of this prizewinning photograph by Alicia Reid.
Claiming top spot in the “Things” category, Reid’s photo was one of three grand prize winners in the recently concluded Scarborough’s New View photography contest, with Devante Goulbourne and Edmond Veliz Morales triumphing in the “People” and “Places” categories respectively.
I’m pleased to have had a hand in this delightful situation, given that I had the privilege of chairing the jury that selected these winning images, and also recognized an additional 27 photographs as runners-up and honourable mentions in the three categories.
These and the rest of the more than 3,700 contest entries were submitted by both new and experienced photographers in response to a joint summer call from the City of Toronto and the local not-for-profit Scarborough Arts.
Co-ordinated by local photographer Anthony Gebrehiwot, Scarborough’s New View simply required GTA residents to post their photos on Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag #scarboroughphoto.
And whether they knew it or not, every one of those images was posted in response to one photograph in particular: the image of a partially collapsed house that Google displayed when “Scarborough” was typed into its search engine last November.
You might remember this photograph, as it widely made the rounds on local news outlets and social media at the time, sparking both positive and negative commentary before Google quickly made amends and corrected its algorithmic error.
While many had a laugh at Scarborough’s expense, random or not, the photograph of this dilapidated house reinforced long-standing negative depictions that this community has consistently had to face.
Once perceived as a suburban wasteland, as its migrant and refugee populations increased starting in the 1980s, Scarborough moved to being stigmatized as a place of violence and criminality.
As York University colleagues
Ranu Basu and Robert S. Fiedler indicate in a 2017 article: “Scarborough is often perceived by media commentators as a ‘distasteful, esthetically bleak, bland and dangerous landscape’ — a failure of modernist planning and often ridiculed with nicknames such as Scarberia, Scarlem, ScarBlackistan.”
With much less attention being paid to the ways in which Scarborough remains economically and infrastructurally disadvantaged, these unfair stereotypes have affected generations of its residents.
Deputy Mayor Michael Thompson, who has represented Scarborough Centre since 2003, is all too familiar with these injurious characterizations and he immediately came up with the idea of the photo contest to celebrate Scarborough, its scenic places and its communities.
Photography contests have proliferated widely over the past decade and, like many other photographers, I’m often wary of them since many are simply profit-making schemes and offer ambiguous benefits.
But this one was an easy yes, as it gets right to the heart of the work that I’m trying to do as your photo laureate. What I’m most interested in is the role that photographs play in what we think, believe and understand about each other and our city, and this contest clearly gives us all a chance to see Scarborough differently.
And when we can see differently, there is always the hope that this will help us to think differently.
Already a Scarborough fan myself, I didn’t need much convincing of its attributes, and yet I still learned so much about this part of our city through the jury experience.
Judging anything is such a subjective process and lucky me, I got to share in the brilliance, expertise and insider perspective of local talents Anique Jordan and Esmond Lee. Scarborough-born and raised, these two artists and photographers brought their fierce hometown pride to the table and schooled me in Scarborough vibes and essence.
Thanks to them, judging this contest turned out to be an absolute joy. There were so many compelling images that told different stories about Scarborough, and it was a pleasure to discuss and debate them, with plenty of shared stories of our own along the way.
The Bluffs were an overwhelmingly popular location, but contest entries featured everything from people at work to parking lots to pets, and we were thrilled at the overall range and quality of submissions.
In the end, we chose a confident portrait of his friend, a musician known as jJ, by Goulbourne; an intimate black-andwhite photograph of a wellknown Persian bakery in a Markham Road plaza by Morales; and this tribute to the Jamaican-Canadian presence in Toronto by Reid.
Our plan was to showcase all of these winning photographs at an exhibition at the Scarborough Civic Centre but, as 2020 COVID-19 choreography demands, we pivoted to an online exhibition, and you can now see them all at scarboroughphoto.ca.
Please indulge us and check them out, along with the ongoing #scarboroughphoto hashtag. We’ve been told over and over that this is a year that is helping us see things anew, and surely all our communities in Toronto deserve that indeed. Michèle Pearson Clarke is Toronto’s photo laureate. Each month, she takes a different photo and talks about why it’s important to the city and why you should take a look at it. Follow her on Instagram @tophotolaureate.
The Bluffs were a popular subject, but entries featured everything from people at work to parking lots to pets