When Waste Becomes Art

This Toronto centre is ‘saving the planet, one scrap, one stitch, one piece at a time’

By Raghad Genina

A shelf in the Creative Reuse Toronto centre that is filled with a variety of crafts that have been made out of repurposed materials on Monday, Feb. 29, 2024. (Raghad Genina/CanCulture)

In a facility housed under a newly built condo building in the middle of the Parkdale community, the rhythmic hum of sewing machines breaks the silence. As you enter the centre on Abell Street, you are met by floor-to-ceiling windows that bathe the place in sunlight. The sounds of the sharp edges of scissors coming together as they slice through layers of fabric and the clink of buttons, as they're being sorted into different piles, echo through the room. A wide variety of tapestries, baskets and crafts, made of repurposed materials, line the walls and shelves of the centre. Deep into the room lie countless stacked plastic containers filled to the brim with materials like yarn and different types of textiles that would have been thrown out if not for Creative Reuse Toronto. 

Unlike traditional recycling, where materials are recovered and then broken down and converted into something else, Creative Reuse Toronto keeps these materials out of landfills by repurposing them into art. Textiles like fabric take more than 200 years to decompose in landfills, making this an important initiative. A 2023 report by Fashion Takes Action, a Canadian non-profit organization focusing on ethics and sustainability in the fashion industry, estimated that about 500,000 tonnes of post-consumer clothing end up in Canada’s landfills each year. 

“We throw away things and don't realize where they're going or what their impact is,” says Helen Melbourne, retired artist and co-founder of Creative Reuse Toronto. 

  As Melbourne guides a visitor through the maze of shelves, each corner is filled with discarded items waiting to be repurposed. From stacks of abandoned fabrics to jars filled with an assortment of colourful buttons, this space is a sanctuary for those who see potential where others see waste. 

Melbourne views materials differently than most people. From baskets made out of plastic grocery bags to mats made from shreds of fabric masks and clothing made from 100 per cent repurposed textiles, when Melbourne sees any scrap material, she thinks, “What is the material? What could it be?” She says, “everything has potential.” 

This mindset has been ingrained in her since a young age. She recalls her childhood, filled with creativity. “I made my own dolls, bedspreads and even doll houses out of cardboard. It was so rewarding to do it as a child.”

The average Canadian throws away 37 kilograms of textiles each year, 95 per cent of which can be reused or upcycled. Creative Reuse Toronto is attempting to help combat this issue by taking textiles and other materials and upcycling them. 

The tipping point for Melbourne came when she took a tour of the Keele Valley landfill before it shut down in 2002. It was the largest landfill in Canada during its operation. Although she took the tour decades ago, she still remembers the moment as if it was just yesterday. She says the dump was unbelievable and overwhelming, reeking of mould. She describes it as “a colossal mess.” 

Melbourne first had the idea for the centre in 2017. She posted her idea of opening a Creative Reuse centre on Facebook to see if anyone would be interested in pursuing it with her. Now co-founder Sue Talusan responded to the post right away, as she has always been passionate about reducing waste and had worked on this issue during grad school. Talusan grew up collecting items from people's curbs and garage sales and repurposing them, just like Melbourne.  She is also currently leading the design, strategy and product development of an innovation ecosystem impact accelerator.  

After three years of talking and bonding online, they finally set up a meeting at a church near the St. George subway station where they would discuss their plans. Laughter erupts around the Creative Reuse Centre as Talusan recalls the moment when she first saw Melbourne in the church and embraced her in a big hug. “I had no idea who she was,” says Melbourne. She never knew what Talusan looked like until that moment. After that big hug, they hit it off “to the point where we were finishing each other's sentences,” says Talusan. 

As Melbourne continues to recall moments in her life when she felt she needed to help make a change, volunteers come in and out of the centre, greeting each other with excitement. Whispers can be heard amongst them about what they plan to create with all the materials that have been donated. While the volunteers continue to converse, a community member walks up to Melbourne, asking her for advice on how she would repurpose a book filled with colourful fabric samples. Melbourne, without hesitation, gives the idea of a flip book that would be filled with different images. “You were just flipping through it and it looked like a flipbook,” says Melbourne. 

“She gives good ideas. Helen is a wealth of information,” says Diane*, the community member.

Melbourne describes some of the centre's artwork. One piece was created for a person with visual impairments. It contains parts of various-textured textiles such as corduroy, shag carpet and silk that have been sewn together to help enhance a blind person's perception of tactile images. Like all the art made here, it is created out of 100 per cent repurposed fabrics.  

All the textiles and other materials in Creative Reuse Toronto have been donated by fabric stores and manufacturers that are either downsizing or closing. Some donations also come from clothing design studios, the estates of seamstresses, quilters and individuals who are clearing out their stashes. Much of their initial stock came from businesses that were closing just after the first lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, businesses also donated most of the centre’s tools and equipment, such as sewing machines, storage containers, tables and art supplies like knitting needles. 

Talusan recalls that right after they signed their lease, as they were on the brink of opening, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. This set them back significantly. However, several years later, Talusan reflects on the journey of resilience that has led to the now thriving centre. During COVID-19, Creative Reuse Toronto survived because of the community's support. Donations kept this place running, and volunteers contributed not just their own time but also dipped into their own pockets to help keep the place going. Now, Talusan says that a combination of sources, such as  paid sewing classes, workshops and donations, keeps the centre open. 

Talusan looks back at a moment a few years ago when a big company offered them 60 skids of gift boxes. Although they didn't want to say no because they didn't want the boxes to end up in a landfill, they had to as they didn't have enough space for it in their centre. 

“Why would you be offering it in the first place?” asks Talusan. “The choice they made of producing too much with no repercussions. Then they try to put the responsibilities on us instead of taking responsibility for it.” 

The core of Creative Reuse Toronto is its commitment to "saving the planet, one scrap, one stitch, one piece at a time," a phrase that echoes through the centre's walls. 

“I believe in this, in a better world for both the people and the planet,” says Talusan. “In a perfect world, we would put ourselves out of business.” 

The Women Colouring Toronto with a Purpose

Women across Toronto make murals and street art to connect with and change the city 

By Rowan Flood

Jasmine Vanstone is sitting with her art for StreetARToronto's Evelyn-Wiggins cycle track near York University in June 2023. Photo taken by Gage Fletcher.

Toronto’s landscape has tall and low buildings, narrow and wide streets, houses, parks and more. Within the city's structure, there is also the opportunity for art. The art put onto the street and for the public is a way to connect, impact and change our shared spaces. The women who create street art in Toronto consider their works' potential when creating.

Connecting to those we know and those we don’t

“Community arts is a healing tool,” said Jasmine Vanstone, “To create conversations, to help with storytelling.”

Vanstone is a Jamaican-Canadian multi-disciplinary artist based in Toronto; however, that does not sum her up entirely.

“In my bio, there are like three titles,” she said with a faint giggle.

Despite talking in a soft voice that made me want to lean my ear into the speaker over a Zoom call, Vanstone's life as an artist is bold. From getting a Bachelor of Fine Arts from York University and graduating from a post-grad arts management program at Centennial College to winning countless awards and working in many positions surrounding community engagement and art education, her passion spreads far.

One of Vanstone's projects was in 2022 when she participated in the Future Without Oppression mural in Kensington Market. She described the mural as a collaborative project with Black artists who united to express their ideas and visions of a world without anti-black racism and other oppression. Vanstone worked on the ground mural, painting on the street itself.

The project allowed her to make art of her choice. Vanstone knew she did not want to paint Black bodies and explained she “didn’t want people to step on representations of Black bodies.”

Instead, she used symbols: a heart hugging the Earth with a rainbow of pink, blue and yellow spiralling throughout. She also painted a bee that was “pollinating” another artist's work.

The initiative became a space that hosted those more than surface-level exchanges, and Vanstone explained these spaces are rare. People would walk by and ask, “What does this mean to you?” allowing her to engage with fellow artists and passers-by in the area. Vanstone engaged with an entire community “to create a cohesive story.”

Creating with and for others is something familiar to Vanstone. She was a part of a mural done at the Finch TTC Station. As Vanstone talks of this mural, a smile stretches across her cheeks, and her eyes brighten. “That was so amazing,” she says warmly with an upward gaze that seems to direct the words at the world. 

The brown brick wall of the TTC’s Finch subway station she helped paint wasn’t just a wall to her. Vanstone grew up near the station. She often passes through the neighbourhood and remembers waiting for a bus across the platform. Not wanting to “accidentally stare” at people, Vanstone would stare at her surroundings: at the little shop with Korean snacks or the bus waiting area. She’s re-connected with those who’ve seen the art and reached out to her.

Her work on the subway station project allowed Vanstone to connect with neighbours and her community

“It was uplifting my community through beautifying the space,” said Vanstone.

Working with our shared city spaces

Uplifting communities and reclaiming spaces are consistent purposes of the street artists I spoke with. Even if people who see street art don’t know the artist or the exact context of the piece, it does not render the art invaluable. The possibility for a piece of street art to move someone is still there.

Vanstone explained that recognizing an art piece's beauty can make people see other beautiful aspects of their lives or environments. “It becomes more about building a sense of gratitude and gratefulness,” said Vanstone.

Changing our cities’ environment is a concept artist Monica Wickeler also thinks about.

Wickeler loves to put their art into the city's spaces. Their public work can be found in laneways, playgrounds, wading pools and, as her bio says, “anything that stays still long enough.”

Wickeler explained that street art is an opportunity to reclaim an environment. She believes that many spaces in the city are underused and brought up the “broken window effect.” For example, say a window is broken and goes unfixed, or a pile of litter goes uncleaned. , After a while, more windows will break, and more litter will accumulate. However, according to Wickeler, murals can help change this cycle.

“If you fix the window, plant some community gardens, paint some murals,” said Wickeler over a Zoom call, “Suddenly, this becomes a vibrant community space.”

They explained that a “vibrant” space can make an area more used and be a door to meeting neighbours and one's community. Wickeler acknowledged that even living in a city as populated as Toronto’s three million, people can still be isolated.

One of Wickeler's projects was a collaborative effort between artists behind the Art Gallery of Ontario in a laneway. For Wickeler's part of the mural, she painted an oversized, chunky “Shrek,” like blue hands holding a curled-up sleeping orange fox. She also added her Instagram handle to the bottom. A year after the project, they got a DM. The woman who messaged her explained that she walks by the mural almost daily with her daughter on their way to daycare. Whenever her daughter approaches the mural, she says, “Sshhhh, the fox is sleeping.”

Wickeler doesn't often get feedback on her street art. She creates murals and then leaves them for the city, but when this woman reached out, it was a connection and realization that her art was impacting people's spaces. Wickeler hopes her art makes people think, and they use bright colours to have a positive impact. She compared her street art to little “cookies,” around the city that add an extra layer of joy to people's days.

“I want them to enjoy their urban space,” they said.

Another project Wickler participated in was The Laneway Project, a way to help reclaim some laneways in local Greater Toronto Area neighbourhoods. She helped paint a healing corridor in Central Hospital Lane with artist Nyle Miigizi Johnston. They created a gateway storytelling mural at the entrance of the healing corridor.

The impact public art can have

Keitha Keeshig-Tobias Biizindam explained that her murals are “right out there in the public, and it only takes a few seconds for all the knowledge in that picture to get put in your brain.”

Biizindam is an Indigenous, Ojibwe and Delaware multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto. Right at the beginning of our conversation, she was direct about a large part of who she is.

“I do a lot of art,” she said, smiling as she spread her hands across the screen over Zoom. Art has always been a part of her life, and it was one of the fundamentals of her childhood.

When she was younger, “toys, cakes and candies” were a no, but the two things she was guaranteed to have were books and art supplies. Her passion for art allowed it to become a tool she uses to reclaim Indigenous sciences.

She recounted, with a rising voice, how her younger cousins have approached her with stories about the discriminatory things they’ve been told in school: Indigenous people don’t have science and don’t understand math. Her artwork is partly aimed at changing these outdated and stereotypical ideas. To Biizindam, murals are a way to do this.

Biizindam puts reclamation of Indigenous science into her work so everyone who passes by can think of Indigenous people in a scientific and modern framework. With little hesitation, she listed the depth of Indigenous knowledge, from topics such as animals to nature to food. She uses her work to clarify that Indigenous people are here and have contributed to our world.

In Trillium Park, Biizindam did a mural covering the four sides of a shipping container. The walls of the container are filled with pink, purple, yellow and black. However, one side is covered in white hexagons of the chemical structures of Indigenous scientific discoveries pre-contact, “so people can see something that is very scientific,” explained Biizindam.

She has left enough information in her paintings so people who witness them can research themselves. “The knowledge increases and gets bigger,” she said.

Another side of Biizindams’ mural says ‘Culture Back’. It has the silhouette of a mother and child —The mother's dark hair forms around them both like an Anishnaabe dreamcatcher, holding the mother's nightmares to be evaporated by the sunlight like dew drops.

“It talks about all those nightmares that scare Indigenous women,” she said, “It would be catching such things as birth alerts, residential school, not being able to afford your child's medical treatment.”

Biizindam creates artwork with strong messages and puts them to the public for a reason. Her artwork aims to make people reflect and learn, and she embraces creating and displaying her work in busy environments like Nuit Blanche and her Trillium Park mural.

“I’m trying to change this world,” said Biizindam firmly. “I’m trying to turn this world into a place where my children feel safe to be whatever they want to be.”

Educating people is one element of her mural work, but eliciting emotions is another. Much of Biizindam's murals feature women at the forefront, and she paints their bodies in specific postures to impact viewers. Drawing people in certain poses that indicate feelings, a head leaning downwards or arms spread far as if in flight, are potent symbols people can relate to and feel.

Colombian artist La Pupila also thinks of making people feel certain emotions. La Pupila is a visual artist based in Toronto. Despite being a tattoo artist for five years and having completed many murals and exhibited her work in a gallery, she struggles with the confidence to call herself an artist.

“Ahhh!” she laughed when I asked about her title over a Zoom call.

While she may not be able to confidently tell me she is an artist, her face and body said a lot. Her arms each have black-inked lined shapes of tattoos, and her eyes widen, animating her face as she speaks of her work.

Much of her street art is in black and white and features faces. Dark black eyebrows and intense eyes that stare at you from the wall are some characteristics of La Pupila’s mural art. She has also painted city garbage cans in bright yellow and pink, with eyes peering up from the lids. The garbage bins are a playful way of brightening a community, and the faces she paints, she hopes, make people feel a tenderness.

“You do it, and it's for the street,” said La Pupila with a smile. “Anything can happen.”

The artists' work goes out to the city and everything within it.

Nuit Blanche: One Sleepless Night in Toronto

By Kieona George

From dusk to dawn, Nuit Blanche illuminated Toronto’s streets with the theme of Many Possible Futures. A host of artists and activists amplified their voices through new formats, materials and technology, evoking the untold stories of history and bringing a new face to movements, people and places.

  Social awareness ran thick through the veins of every exhibit; splendor manifested into political consciousness and left every observer with a message and a memory. Monument to the Century of Revolutions reflected on some of the revolutions of the 20th century.

  “It’s important for the city to recognize that the people are suffering, and then to make it a space where people can talk about those things,” said Nato Thompson, curator of Century of Revolutions.

  The Viminal Space dove headfirst into the decriminalization of sex workers, putting a human face on an industry that is so often reviled. More or Less allowed viewers to post a selfie with resistance to poverty from the past as a backdrop, allowing the viewer to become an indelible part of a campaign to increase homeless shelters in Toronto with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.

  Thompson talked about his Bolshevist inspirations, with 2017 marking the 100-year anniversary since the revolution in Russia. It took two years for Thompson to create and finalize the idea, and more seven months to produce Century of Revolutions, which was formed in collaboration with the Russian collective “Chto Delat” (in English: “what is to be done?”).

Thompson’s original idea was to to recreate the raid of the Winter Palace by having cast members invade City Hall, but for obvious reasons, the deal was rejected. Thompson decided to present the curations in old cargo shipping containers, painting them as vessels of cultural spirit rather than vessels of material export. His piece inverted perspective, challenged the western archetype of excess and radically engaged our deeply-held notions of poverty.

Century of Revolutions crafted its own city from Thompson’s creative and political vision. The exteriors of the shipping containers were denude of their own significance; many containers of them were masterfully interwoven in mosaics of revolutionary paraphernalia like banners that read “There are cracks in everything, that’s how the light gets through.”

Spoken word recitals, musical performances, and various other resonances filled the ears from every direction. Every sense was encumbered by the extraordinary voice that found its way into each element of the exhibit. “Revolution is already happening," Thompson said. "The real question I ask is how can we connect our struggles so that we can achieve social justice not only in Toronto but across the world." Another artist delivered a moving spoken word performance about gun violence and her family’s experiences. Faduma Mohamed, a third-year English student at the University of Toronto, merged her personal struggles with gun violence to a hopeful future at RISE Edutainment’s installation.

“The voices of anyone feeling like they don’t belong in Canada are the most important voices,” she said. Despite her harrowing stories, Mohamed emitted an tone of acceptance and hope, her spirit permeated in those who heard her." “This world has multiple ways of making us feel small, but we don’t need to feel small,” Mohamed said. “We are larger than life.”

In keeping with the theme of social revolution, the exhibit Taking to the Streets expressed the intersection of art and protest, and how art imitating life allows people to promote tangible change.

  Curator Barbara Fischer said in her curatorial statement that the streets are the primordial for celebration and remembrance, making Nuit Blanche a fitting opportunity to highlight social justice.

  “When there is no justice, the street becomes the place where we rally and throw our voice together in a show of force,” Fischer said. “Festival and protest meet in the street, and art is associated with both, remembering by way of images, words, whispered histories, or monuments, the points where anger and power clash.”

  The exhibit included eight different projects. Holding Still/Holding Together, created by Annie MacDonell, was a performance that brought emphasis to the passivity of street protestors who offer little resistance when being subverted by police.

Horses was another one of Fischer’s installations, which featured a live group of horses, believe it or not. It took stock of the agitation that marks its own existence. It could be an homage to the understanding that strange times demand strange art, or it is situating the embodiments of visceral strength, power and wisdom in a place where these qualities are ironically lacking.

  Indigenous representation at the event was showcased in Life on Neebahgeezis, curated by Maria Hupfield. It was an Anishinaabe interpretation of David Bowie’s song Life on Mars, using the surreal qualities of the night to make Native stories present and urgent. One of the projects, Serpent People, included a series of theatrical performances as well as sculptures to showcase Indigenous identity. According to the Nuit Blanche website, the project was constructed from “Anishinaabe Intelligence” and fashioned from the stories of The Black Sturgeon from Nippissing First Nation.

  Participants from outside of Toronto may have been intrigued by the idea of an all-night event.

“If we have a night market where we’re from, it’s until 8 p.m.,” said first-year hospitality student Maya Donald-Hamblin who comes from Victoria, B.C.

The idea of staying out into the wee hours of the morning may offer a radical idea in on its own. Others weren’t aware of the purpose of the event entirely. Taye Robin, 18, thought that Nuit Blanche was an outdoor party, akin to a music festival or concert. His friend Devon Earle, 18, had previously been to Nuit Blanche and wanted him to discover it on his own. He said that the French name of the event draws people in with curiosity, and so it is something people have to plunge into without expectation.

  The Netflix program Stranger Things had its own installation on Osgoode Lane called Red Forest. Due to the show’s popularity, waiting in the line for the exhibit would be a time-consuming and tedious task. In fact, some people spent most of their night simply waiting in the admission line.

  Runnymede Collegiate student Shae Hayes said that she waited with her friends for two hours to walk through the show’s “Upside Down” imitation. The Upside Down is the fictitious alternate dimension in Stranger Things, filled with terrifying and alien creatures. At the end of the installation, there was a “plot twist” as the forest changed into the Twilight Drive-In from Netflix hit Riverdale. As a fan of the show, Hayes rated the exhibit highly.

  Torontonian Julian Gannon said Nuit Blanche shows the city in a different context to those who attend. Nuit Blanche undoubtedly spoke to a carefully curated mix of hip and heart, without for a second sacrificing the enduring cultural identity of Toronto.

  At its core, speaking truth seems to be what Nuit Blanche is about. Through the endless variety of art in all its forms — whether that is sculpture, paintings, projections, spoken word, or any other mode in the imagination — artists demand for their voices to be heard. The beauty of the night spoke to reflections and prospects for the future.

  “I think that when people come here, they end up learning what they wouldn’t learn otherwise,” said first-year dance student Katia Puritch. “They come for the art, and the art has a message.”