The Art Museum – U of T & Hart House transform Commons with "Tree Protection Zone"

Toronto, ON. As large-scale construction on U of T’s Landmark Initiative continues around the Hart House Commons, a number of large tree-protection hoardings have inspired a public art project entitled Tree Protection Zone (TPZ). When completed at the end of summer 2021, the aptly named project will feature specially commissioned mural-sized works by eight artists and their collaborators considering the preservation of life, water, and kin and how each is inextricably linked to the protection of trees.

This temporary public art project provides an opportunity to engage students and the wider public in essential conversations about the land and its people and helps to set the stage for the permanent Indigenous Landscape Project - an offshoot of the Landmark Initiative - that will be constructed on the Commons in Spring/Summer 2022.

The artists participating in the TPZ are supported by Student Assistants and emerging artists who will benefit from the unique opportunity to closely engage with the artists’ processes, vision, and knowledge. Working with the TPZ curatorial team, the Assistants will be applying a variety of creative processes as they help to bring the artists’ designs to life. The initiative fosters collaborations involving artists, family, students, and community members of diverse backgrounds that forward Indigenous perspectives and knowledge.

Tree Protection Zone (TPZ) is made possible by Presenting Partners including the Office of the Vice-President, Operations and Real Estate Partnerships, University of Toronto; the Art Museum at the University of Toronto (AMUT); Hart House; Indigenous Student Services; and the Office of Indigenous Initiatives at U of T. Additional project support is provided by the City of Toronto’s Arts and Culture Grant, and the Ministry of Colleges and Universities (MCU) and U of T’s Postsecondary Education Fund for Aboriginal Learners (PEFAL). The project is produced in conjunction with ArtworxTO, the City of Toronto’s Year of Public Art, launching in September.

“This major art in public space project, organized by the Art Museum, introduces to the campus of the University of Toronto an as-of-yet rarely acknowledged, but urgent sense of long-lived place: amongst the ancient trees and cared-for landscapes, and amidst the short span of settler history as configured by the surrounding historic buildings, the curators and artists’ works remind us of the intertwining of human and the planet’s life, drawing out buried stories and standing both with and as protectors of the land,” says Barbara Fischer, Executive Director/Chief Curator, Art Museum at the University of Toronto.

“The role of public visual art is such a powerful one,” says John Monahan, Warden of Hart House, who first approached the other U of T partners about reimagining the tree hoardings in a way that would signal the future Indigenous Landscape Project to be undertaken on the same site. “The presence of the Tree Protection Zone (TPZ) installation in the city and on the U of T downtown campus is an important visual declaration about the past, present, and future of this land and the Indigenous peoples who have been stewarding it for generations. Hart House is proud to be part of this inspiring initiative.”

Curated by Mik Migwans, Assistant Professor and Curator at AMUT, and Maria Hupfield, Assistant Professor Indigenous Digital Arts and Performance, the Tree Protection Zone (TPZ) features eight invited artists, including Susan Blight, Carrie Hill, Que Rock, Taqralik Patridge and Nils Ailo Utsi, Christi Belcourt and Isaac Murdoch (of the Onaman Collective), and Shuvinai Ashoona. The artists will use the hoardings as a support structure for their work in diverse media, employing traditional street art techniques and a variety of other applications to turn Hart House Commons into a celebration of the garden and trees, the buried waterway (Taddle Creek) that remains there under the soil, and the community that is centered here.

“Cities constantly change at street level; hoardings inform the urban aesthetic and are part of our daily living. By drawing attention to the tree protection zones found on construction sites, this Indigenous-led public art project signals the University of Toronto’s support of work by artists who prioritize critical accountability to place, land, and peoples as part of the vibrant energy of the city,” says Maria Hupfield, co-curator, Tree Protection Zone (TPZ).

Tree Protection Zone (TPZ) will be completed and open for public viewing from September 7, 2021, until Spring/Summer 2022 when the Indigenous Landscape Project begins.

As access to Hart House Circle is limited during construction, we invite you to follow the progress of Tree Protection Zone (TPZ) on social media:

Instagram: @artmuseumuoft or Instagram: @harthouseuoft

Facebook: @ArtMuseumUofT or Facebook: @HartHouseUofT

Twitter: @artmuseumuoft or @harthouseuoft

#TPZ #TreeProtectionZone #IndigenousArt #ArtMuseumUofT #HartHouse #UofT