The artists in STYLL disrupt boundaries and blur borders between downtown and the suburbs, the centre and margins, ourselves and each other. Each project exposes the unexpected and unplanned, making real again what was denied or written over.
Scarborough is a community of primarily working-class immigrants, Indigenous communities and first-generation Canadians. These historically underresourced, and often ignored, communities have used their collective action to influence the creativity of this place. STYLL illuminates the artistic production that has always existed, and continues to thrive, in Scarborough. Artists riff on suburban landscapes—strip malls, lush parks, ravines and postwar housing—to pose questions of our collective existence: What do we take with us and what do we leave behind when we go to a new place? How do we create borders, both real and imagined? Who gets to create them?
Each project in STYLL was made by artists from Scarborough or in collaboration with members of Scarborough communities. Forest soundscapes, monuments to honour this community, live performances and light-based projections will engage people of Scarborough, this city’s creatives and beyond.
Lead image: Hiba Abdallah, Everything I Wanted to Tell You, 2018. Photo by Anthony Gebrehiwot.