Spadina Line | Part 2

If you walk along this route moving either from the north to the south that is from Davenport to Dupont, or from Dupont to Davenport you are actually walking along an old lakebed. Lake Iroquois was the former glacial lake from which Lake Ontario is its present carnation. The idea about the revelation of time and history that the Spadina Line artwork looks at is evident as you walk and look down at your feet as you're walking this route. And the metaphor is essentially that as the lake receded, as the water receded it revealed different periods of history as the shoreline became more and more visible. So what you will see for example at the, at Davenport, where the water receded the longest time ago, is the word "Iroquois". And "Iroquois" refers to the lake itself, Lake Iroquois as it was known as well as to the early settlement of that period. You move all the way to the south end, which would be the most recent recession of water, and you find this word "Archive". And "Archive" of course discusses both our time now, the fact that this artwork is archival and of course it refers to the archive across the road, the City of Toronto archive. So it has multi meanings, as do many of the other words. For example: the word "Power". The word "Power", which is adjacent to one of the streetlights, talks about Sir Henry Pellet who was one of the founders of Toronto Power Company. You just look to the north you will see Casa Loma which is his and you will also understand that "Power" speaks in many ways about political power, about economic power and it's a much larger reverberative word that speaks about many aspects of building the city. " There's many words that really have multiple meanings. And the words were chosen both for their specific as well as for their multi valencey of what they could possibly mean.

Want to hear more? Check out Part 3.

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