Search This Blog

Friday, May 8, 2015

MAY 23RD - UPCOMING EXHIBITION BY HUMBER COLLEGE THAT WILL LINK THE EXTINCT PASSENGER PIGEON AND PSYCHIATRIC SURVIVORS

There will be a new exhibition at Humber College in the L-Space Gallery in building L (the large building on the middle of the old hospital quadrangle - entrance near Tim Horton's). 

The  exhibition is called "Visualizing Absence" and it will "memorialize the histories of the former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital Grounds".  It will run from May 22nd. to July 3rd.  The opening reception will take place on Saturday, May 23rd. at 3 p.m. (The day of the Spring Bird Festival which finishes at 1 p.m.).

For more information, please visit the "Visualizing Absence" website and/or Humber College's Interpretive Centre website.

One interesting aspect of the exhibition will be "prayergrams" which will be attached to trees in the park.  They will connect the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon with the names of 1,511 people buried at the Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital Cemetery, mostly in unmarked graves. 

To read more about the Passenger Pigeon, please check out a previous Friends of Sam Smith Park post about "Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon".

The 1,511 people buried in the Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital Cemetery (on the corner of Evans Avenue and Horner Avenue, about 2 km from the Lakeshore grounds) were institutionalized and hidden away in life and, in death, remain forgotten.

This project honours the Passenger Pigeon and gives a name and a voice to every person buried in the cemetery.

They are making 1,511 prayergrams out of biodegradable unbleached Kraft paper. Using water based paint, one side of each piece of paper holds part of a stenciled image of a Passenger Pigeon.   Using pencil and water based ink, each prayergram will give the gravesite location and the name of each person buried in the cemetery. 

Unbleached twine attaches the prayergram to a tree branch and, when the paper deteriorates, the twine can be used by birds and other small animals to make nests.

No comments: