Project Background

During the summer of 2022, I was contacted by Homes First, a Toronto non-profit supporting those experiencing homelessness in the city, to co-design a mural for a lounge space in a recently opened Scarborough shelter.

During my initial meeting with clients at the site, I presented prompts that spurred ideas around family, persistence, transformation and security as possible beginning points..

These themes were developed further through a second workshop that involved some conversations about potential visuals. The idea of collected items on a mantle and curated moments framed and hung on the wall to evoke the idea of a living room were decided on to hold the piece together.

Through further research on the location of the shelter I settled on the motif of the bank swallow. This is a bird species native to the nearby Scarborough bluffs, (which also feature in the mural). They live together in colonies of burrowed nests along the shores of Lake Ontario. These birds persist against erosion, and human development in the construction of their communities.which felt to me a fitting metaphor for the dignity and strength displayed by those fighting and enduring the crisis of housing access in Toronto.

During the installation, I invited residents to join me to learn about mural making by experiencing it hands on. I was fortunate to share many conversations over the course of weeks spent painting with residents. Many offered reflections, interpretations, and insight related both to the work and their experience of the shelter itself. This aspect of the work was an invaluable component and I’m so grateful for everyone I got to meet and work with during this project.