Art could energize new LRT
$10-million program will see artworks installed at stations
When the Eglinton Crosstown LRT opens in 2021, Toronto residents will get their first new stand-alone rapid transit line in almost two decades.
They will also get millions of dollars worth of new public art.
As part of its recently launched integrated art program, Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency in charge of building the $5.3-billion Crosstown, is including eight installations at six of the line’s 25 stations.
While providing transit to the increasingly congested city will be the primary function of the new LRT, the artworks — which together will cost about $10 million — are not an afterthought. The “integrated” aspect of the integrated art program is an indication of the extent to which the pieces have been incorporated into the stations from the beginning.
“They’re not stand-alone pieces. They’re actually built right in and replace some of the material finishes that would be there any way,” said Laura Berazadi, a senior adviser at Metrolinx and the lead for the program.
The art was “built into the design and construction of our facilities from Day 1,” she said.
“They’re not stand-alone pieces. They’re actually built right in.” LAURA BERAZADI SENIOR ADVISER AT METROLINX
Metrolinx will unveil the plans for the art at an event at the Ontario Science Centre on Tuesday morning, but renderings of three of the pieces provided to the Star give a glimpse of how the agency intends to beautify the public spaces that will be used daily by thousands of transit riders.
The works were selected through an open call Metrolinx issued in 2015 that drew 187 applications. An independent panel that included Kitty Scott, the Art Gallery of Ontario’s curator of modern and contemporary art, and Kelvin Browne, the CEO of Gardiner Museum, then helped pick the winning installations out of a shortlist of 14.
Berazadi said all of the pieces are eye-catching, but she predicted transit users will particularly respond to Light from Within, a piece by Rodney LaTourelle and Louise Witthöft that will grace Eglinton Station. The 13ton panel made of mirrored glass tiles will be installed above the station escalators, confronting riders as they move down to the train platform.
According to the artist’s description, the piece was inspired by minerals, crystals and gemstones, a nod to the “subterranean nature of rapid transit.”
That’s particularly fitting for Eglinton, which, because it’s being built beneath the existing TTC subway station at Yonge and Eglinton, will be the deepest LRT stop on the Crosstown.
“It’s almost like a glowing crystal as you descend down into the bottom of the station,” Berazadi said of the work.
At Science Centre Station, Metrolinx plans to install Total Lunar Eclipse, a “wall painting” made of porcelain tiles silkscreened by hand. The description by British-American artist Sarah Morris says the piece “invites reflection on concepts of light, scale and motion through space.”
Reorganization of One Hedge, a piece by Polish-Canadian artist Dagmara Genda, will be erected at Kennedy Station. Genda is creating the work by reorganizing photographs of leaves from the same hedge, which will then be printed onto a glass skylight.
The three other stations with major art installations planned are Mount Dennis, Caledonia and Eglinton West (to be renamed Cedervale). Berazadi said they were selected because they are intermodal stops that connect with other transit lines and are expected to have higher use.
Roughly $1 million of the program budget will be used to create digital art on screens at stations across the Crosstown line. The TTC recently stirred controversy when it refused to activate a $500,000 interactive digital piece called LightSpell at Pioneer Village Station on the Spadina subway extension. The agency cited fears members of the public could use it to write offensive messages.
Details of the digital art planned for the Crosstown have yet to be finalized, but Metrolinx spokesperson Anne Marie Aikins said the agency has learned from the TTC controversy.
“We are taking a little more cautious approach,” she said. “It won’t be interactive.”