Image courtesy: Church Street Mural project
Part of Special Issue #1 – QTBIPOC Space – Remapping Belonging in Toronto
Syrus Marcus Ware, is a visual artist, community mobilizer, educator and researcher pursuing his PhD studies at York University. He shares with us his story of co-facilitating a large-scale Church Street Mural Project in the Gay Village. Ware acknowledges the political complexity in the process of creating the murals, and identifies that they serve multiple contested purposes: to represent QTBIPOC stories and lift up QTBIPOC artists, while also potentially playing into neighbourhood beautification and gentrification aesthetics. Syrus also tells the story of how this community mural model was co-opted by the Metro Toronto Police in a failed attempt at a forced public reconciliation with the LGBTQ community.
Transcript of this interview is available here (download PDF). Transcription was done by Carly Thomas.
Also check out this project Mapping the Church Street Murals by Carly Thomas for details and images of each mural.
Find out more about the Church Street Mural project.