Golden Mile art projects show life in a changing area

Claire Forsyth, a young artist who has lived her life near the Golden Mile, sums up her feelings for it: “It’s flat, it’s concrete, but it’s ours.”

Once called the Golden Mile of Industry, the area – surrounded by such neighbourhoods as Clairlea, Wexford, Parma Court and Victoria Village – will slowly see its landscape of plazas and parking lots erased and rebuilt.

This coming wave of shiny mixed-use development east of Victoria Park and Eglinton avenues has some residents worrying over the future, but gives others hope.

This summer, people answered this prospect of change with art, from photography to song, as Golden Mile became one of the City of Toronto’s Cultural Hotspots.

Some work they produced shows how much the area, now on the Crosstown light-rail line, has changed already.

Often, small businesses or their owners were uppermost in artists’ minds.

Muzna Erum chose to photograph Ruby’s Mediterranean Restaurant in Eglinton Square mall because it’s her favourite shawarma place.

Her picture of shawarma grills is part of Golden (Mile) Memories, an outdoor project near Centennial College’s Ashtonbee Campus blending past and present images representing the area.

The project co-ordinated by Nithursan Elamuhilan taught Erum and fellow youth curators Darlen Ballkaniku, Ali Khan and Vanessa Tolentino how to tell stories through photography and more about their area’s history.

Ruby’s catered the exhibit’s Oct. 16 launch party on campus.

Youth curator Muzna Erum, left, with Nithursan Elamuhilan, co-ordinator of Golden (Mile) Memories, an installation of photography for the 2022 Cultural Hotspot on Scarborough’s Golden Mile and surrounding neighbourhoods. — Dan Pearce/Metroland

Erum said Golden Mile “is where I go to do almost everything, to eat, to shop.”

“It’s monumental. The Queen of England came here once.”

Khan, a musician and artist from the area, photographed a friend batting at cricket, a sport played on Golden Mile for decades. He hoped people passing the exhibit would see parts of themselves, or their experiences, reflected.

Elamuhilan said that started happening while he was installing Golden (Mile) Memories — people kept interrupting his work to say, “I remember that photo” or “I know that place.”

“It was already doing what I wanted which was to connect to people,” said Elamuhilan, who wants to continue visual examinations of Scarborough neighbourhoods through a site called itsneerby.ca.

Artists Cai Jerome, left, and Claire Forsyth worked on the Golden Girls mural inside O’Connor Community Centre. The art piece — meant to show inspiring women from the Golden Mile area — is a project of Next Generation Arts for the City of Toronto’s Cultural Hotspot in the Golden Mile. — Dan Pearce/Metroland

At O’Connor Community Centre in Parma Court, on the North York side of Victoria Park, a mural wrapping around a hallway – titled VIEWS (Vision of Inspiring and Empowering Walls in Scarborough): Golden Girls – involved about 20 young female artists in a tribute to local women.

Conceived by Jen Fabico of Next Generation Arts, a Scarborough non-profit, its graphic design is by Mariz Pe and the participants.

Forsyth, who does portraits of pets, was looking for something to bring her out of a slump. Working on Golden Girls did that immediately.

“To say I created this is really, really cool,” she said.

Cai Jerome, another artist, said she was mostly thinking of close friends in the area while painting the mural.

Lately, Jerome has volunteered for any mural project she could, hoping to start a mural business herself. “The best thing about public art is it’s accessible,” she said.

Jen Fabico, Next Generation Arts, The VIEWS (Vision of Inspiring and Empowering Walls in Scarborough): Golden Girls mural inside the O’Connor Community Centre is meant to show inspiring women from the Golden Mile area. — Dan Pearce/Metroland

Rammah Mohammad, a vocal coach, recruited local young people of Arab-Canadian descent, ages 12 to 16, for a different Cultural Hotspot project.

Mohammad didn’t make a recording with the group, as he had hoped — they weren’t ready, he said — but his Eastern music workshops at the Arab Community Centre of Toronto taught them basics of singing.

The teenagers practised with “Tik Tik Tik Ya Em Slaiman,” a Lebanese folksong, and were enthusiastic about learning more.

“It meant a lot for their families that they are connected again to their roots,” said Mohammad, who said if ACCT allows, he will continue teaching there without any grant.

Scarborough Made’s City of Industry, a documentary storytelling project that “showcases the entrepreneurial spirit of Golden Mile business people,” will be displayed in Warden Station’s bus terminal for four weeks after being installed in early November.