Results tagged “sustainability”

It's not often you see a textile artist take part in an architectural exhibit. But Thea Haines's installation fits perfectly at Building for the Economy, the latest in Harbourfront Centre's series of untraditional and interdisciplinary architecture shows. Dispelling the notion that an economic downturn need only spell doom and gloom, her repurposing of tea towels and napkins of all types and colours—some still stained—suggests we rethink what we consider luxury versus necessity and return to a time when "making do" was common. The recession can, Haines suggests, provide artists and designers opportunities to seek beauty in frugality. That each piece of linen is embroidered with a single letter to spell out synonyms for "save" that are both contemporary ("scrimp") and archaic ("stint") suggests looking to the past to solve present-day concerns. These are all themes addressed by the three participating architectural firms.

The food we eat, and the sources thereof, have become the subjects of increasing attention over the past few years. In an attempt to bring farmers and the people they feed closer together, Slow Food Toronto hosted its second annual Farm-to-Home Fair at the Gladstone this past Saturday. Local farmers and food producers came out in force for some agricultural show-and-tell, and local eaters (that's us) came to learn more about the importance of buying from sustainable, Toronto-area farms. Torontoist departed with two dozen pastured, laid-this-week eggs, and also a bit of insight into our local food culture.

We are, just to be clear, very fond of Planet Earth. Big fans. Huge. We are, likewise, fond of initiatives which safeguard our environment, and also in favour of consciousness-raising efforts that promote such initiatives. Therefore, when we say that many of the events being held to celebrate Earth Hour tomorrow are vacuous publicity exercises that insult our intelligence and with which we want no truck, we are not doing it because we think this whole environmental crisis we've been hearing so much about has been overblown. We are doing it because they are so vacuous and so insulting that we have been rendered awestruck by their inanity, and find our consciousness to be depressed, angry, and frustrated rather than uplifted.

It's hard to know quite what Toronto will look like by 2030. Detailed plans become harder to formulate the further into the future one goes: contingencies multiply upon contingencies, and predictions are rendered ever more tenuous. There are, however, some trends that seem fair to anticipate and some others that are fair to hope for.

Torontoist got a sneak peak at the newly redeveloped Wychwood Barns earlier this week and our verdict can be pithily summarized as "yippee!" A veritable playground for the ecologically and socially conscious, the newest Artscape endeavour lives up to the hype and anticipation. The Barns project represents a new and particularly hopeful kind of urban redevelopment, and we can only hope to see many more such ventures breaking ground soon.

Photo by mama loo from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.