Leslie Street Spit Geologies
Lisa Hirmer’s series of photographs, Leslie Street Spit Geologies (2012), is a visual documentation of the accumulation of clean fill, demolition waste, and other detritus that forms the seemingly “natural” environment of the human-constructed spit that abuts Toronto’s shoreline. Hirmer’s photographs are typically presented in a gallery setting and emphasize the banal in contemporary Canadian landscapes—a subject that has historically been mythologized and monumentalized in museums displays, visual culture and throughout the history of Canadian painting. Displayed here as a lightbox print, this particular image suggests a different reading of the land. Viewed against the concrete, brutalist exterior of the William G. Davis Building, the mix of plastic, concrete, glass, and organic debris that covers the Leslie Spit makes visible the contrast in materiality between soil and concrete, and between infrastructure and nature. The relationship between natural and human-made or artificial environments is a theme Hirmer observes throughout her art practice.
The Blackwood
University of Toronto Mississauga
3359 Mississauga Road
Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6
[email protected]
(905) 828-3789
The galleries are currently closed, reopening March 27. Hours of operation: Monday–Saturday, 12–5pm.
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The Blackwood is situated on the Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit, Seneca, and Huron-Wendat.