Project
Lines are biophysical, experiential and conceptual divisions, junctures and connections tied to the history of land.
LAND/SLIDE : Possible Futures will be a large site specific Art Exhibition in Markham, Ontario, one of the oldest, most culturally diverse and fastest growing municipalities in North America. The line is a critical formal element of the exhibition. In 2010, a proposal for a food belt in the Markham area, a line designed to curtail development into Ontario’s prime agricultural lands was narrowly defeated.
LAND/SLIDE is a multisectoral project that invites 20 artists—local and international, emerging and established—who work in a variety of media, and whose practice has been engaged with ecological issues to develop different interpretations of the concept of the line.
The Exhibition is grounded in the past through the Markham Museum, which will serve as the Exhibition’s head quarters and central exhibition site. The Markham Museum contains extensive archives of the area as well as a collection of 80,000 artifacts, 30 buildings and century homes that were relocated to the site, a train station (not active) and 25 acres of land. A number of the project artists selected will take up a month long residency at the Museum site to develop their projects and reflect upon an imagined utopia or possible future outcomes.
Project Sponsors:
