Of the moment

In walking this city, I have come to see what we value in terms of design, how we push forward. It’s also been eye-opening to see our urban landscape through another person’s lens. For this issue, I walked with artist Martin Reis around Queen West, where he added his own stamp with stickers and miniatures he affixes to posts with the purpose of delighting passersby, and adding colour to this often-grey town. As a metaphor, his work is ideal for our annual renovation issue, as he continues the European tradition of street artists there “mending” walls with Lego. The work is beautiful, colourful and poignant — Lego as a building block is universal in its language. Photographer Arash Moallemi shot the story (pg. 82) on film (the first time in 20 years!) at the CAMH wall at Queen and Shaw streets, where Reis (along with my 10-year-old son) bridged gaps of age, time and history with the iconic moulded bricks.

When it seems the construction in Toronto is getting out of hand, the artists remind us what life here can be. Writer B.F. Dawes explores the art of making tiles with Etobicoke’s Black Rock Studio for our Local Act story (pg. 32), and we’ve expanded our pages to include more art and culture – the first installment being Simon Lewsen’s piece (pg. 30) on artist Kapwani Kiwanga’s show “Remediation” at the MOCA. We also sneak a peek at Yaw Tony’s endlessly beautiful new art book Black Palette (pg. 24).

The renovations in this issue are spread out all over the city – from North Toronto to Leslieville and Little Portugal (and one in Mississauga). Most of them either started or ended during the pandemic, which spawned some fresh rethinking of necessary space. All the houses are full to bursting with personal expression, colour and art – something that’s resonating with us all, it seems.