CURATORIAL PREFACE: The rapid elimination of what was once old Toronto is entirely evident even here at Wallace & Lansdowne, one of the last 'undiscovered' neighbourhoods in the city. Out of the rubble of old brick factories, our first condo projects are going up. Everyday the voices of a newer Toronto grow stronger while those of the old fade. By intermingling stories that speak of the past, present, and future, Helen Verbanz and Don Hill infuse the gallery with a unique sense of the neighbourhood.

Antonia Lancaster, Curator/Director


HELEN VERBANZ & DON HILL: Lansdowne-Bloor is an old Toronto neighbourhood with an uncertain future. Although workers' homes still line streets kitty corner to the vacant factories that once employed them, the community's history as a manufacturing mecca is being forgotten. Gentrification proposes to obliterate the past, and the social ills and toxic waste of an urban landscape once fouled by industrial 'progress'. Helen Verbanz & Don Hill visited Lansdowne-Bloor to listen and record impressions of a community in transition. 'COMING TO THE TABLE' is a sound-installation which gives voice to the stories they found there.

Helen Verbanz studied photography at the University of Ottawa and earned an MFA in Visual Arts from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Her photography, video and sound installations investigate landscape as a site for memory, psychological projection, and as a barometer of changing social attitudes. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows across Canada and the United States. Verbanz currently lives and works in Halifax.

Don Hill is adjunct-faculty, a 'thought leader' at the Banff Centre. As the former host of Tapestry on CBC Radio One, he has presented programmes which speak to the spirit of place. He's also an associate-researcher in a neuroscience laboratory. His latest project the em/I (empathy machine/Interface) is a replica of subtle energies found at sacred spots on the earth.

Helen Verbanz and Don Hill, video & sound artists


For more information contact
Antonia at: 416 642 2113

GALLERY DIRECTIONS:

From the Bloor/Lansdowne
subway station, walk north to Wallace
and then another halfblock. It is on the
WEST side in the back building of
a yellow storefront. NOTE: ONLY USE
THE WEST SIDE NUMBERS AS A GUIDE.
The east side numbers have no relationship
to the west side numbers.


__OTMGallery________



photo courtesy of Nadia Halim