Opening ceremonies for Red Embers art installation in Ashbridges Bay Park set for Sunday afternoon – Beach Metro Community News - Beach Metro News | Canada News Media
The Red Embers installation is now on display in Ashbridges Bay Park. Photos by Nicholas Dietrich.
The official opening ceremony of the Red Embers installation will take place at Ashbridges Bay Park on Sunday, Nov. 21 at 2 p.m.
Organizers Lisa Rochon of Citylab and executive director of Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto Pamela Hart welcome everyone to join them at site of the meditative pathway for the ceremony.
“Red Embers is envisioned and designed by an all-women team of designers and Indigenous artists as a work of civic beautification. It is also a sacred memorial to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Trans, Two Spirited,” reads a press release.
Mighty cedar gates are sited between the land and water, framing the pathway while the banners float above. There are 13 gates to symbolize the 13 Grandmother Moon teachings and lunar system.
“The charred cedar posts represent the strength and resilience of Indigenous women, honouring a sisterhood that stands strong even after the attempts to scar and damage have been endless,” said the release.
The banners attached to these posts will float above the pathway, “offering healing through the sound of their jingles and the movement of canvas in the wind.”
At the ceremony, Elder Jacquie Lavalley will provide the blessing, and female trans drummers and jingle dancers will be present to offer healing.
The remounting of Red Embers was made possible by the collaboration of Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto and its womxn members with Indigenous artists from across Turtle Island to create this installation in partnership with Rochon.
There has been generous support for the installation in Ashbridges Bay Park, which is part of ArtworxTO, coming from the City of Toronto’s Indigenous Affairs Office, Cultural Partnerships, and Parks, Forestry and Recreation.
“We are grateful for the genius of participating artists, and the dedication of the ANEX public art installation crew,” reads the press release.
The press release also gives thanks to the women of the Regent Park Sewing Collective who stitched the banners and helped with finishing details.
The commissioned artists are Rosalie Favell, Rolande Souliere, Hannah Claus, Eladia Smoke and Larissa Roque, Kristy Auger and Adrienne Greyeyes, Louise Solomon, Hillary Clermont, Janelle Wawia, Lido Pimienta, Annie Beach, Sarah Biscarra Dilley, Tash Naveau, Lindsey Lickers and the community members and staff of Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto.
Red Embers was originally installed at Allan Gardens in 2019 but were carefully stored away during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first installation was made possible by a team of designers, including Indigenous designers Tiffany Creyke and Larissa Roque, who won a Park People public space competition grant.
“This location in the Beaches was chosen for its serenity and balance between Lake Ontario and the city. The slight crescendo of the path and wave of its direction mimic the emotions the banners will instill,” read the press release.
“By listening and learning, feeling and acknowledging, we can honour those lost and stolen.”
All are welcome and can find the ceremony on the Martin Goodman Trail in Ashbridges Bay Park just past the Beach Community Edible Garden and public washrooms.
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LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
