Spadina Line | Part 1

Hi, my name is Brad Golden and along with Norman Richards we created the Spadina Line artwork in 1991 through a City of Toronto public art competition. The Spadina Line artwork is a multi-component, multi-dimensional artwork. It examines different aspects of time and it does that through a number of different sculptural as well as urban design aspects. One of the components, and perhaps the most visible and most evident, are 7 pedestrian street lights that run along Spadina from Davenport in the north all the way down to Dupont in the south. The lights themselves act as both as metaphors as well as providing a benefit to the city. They illuminate both the street as well as illuminate history.

And it is that aspect of time making new and relevant that the lights themselves as well as the bridge, which is really what this artwork was inspired by, is about. The bridge itself, that is, the railway bridge to the south of the project very close to Davenport, was the original site of the competition. The challenge for us, that is Norman and I as artists, was to make relevant this artifact of our city that at one time had a very, very viable use and function. But over time through the expansion of our city and through the redistribution of rail routes became this less used artifact. Our job as artists was to create both this metaphor as well as this physical route to make relevant this bridge and therefore reinforce its presence.  And in many ways saved it from potential elimination as the city grows. It's our position, Norman and my position, that it's really important to have a city that is a creative accumulative and doesn't keep erasing itself.

Want to hear more? Check out Part 2.

Runtime 00:01:52