A Lake Story
A procession of over one hundred canoes moves in unison across Toronto’s eastern Waterfront on September 27/28, each carrying colour field paintings made with pigments sourced from the lake/shoreline and activated by the wind. A Lake Story will articulate Lake Ontario’s colour story across the sky and water, amplifying the lake’s own voices of vibrancy, ecosystem, and community.
A Lake Story
By Melissa McGill
Commissioned and presented by The Bentway
A Lake Story, a new commission by artist Melissa McGill, takes the form of a large-scale canoe procession that will write Lake Ontario’s story through colour, across the sky and water. Featuring 400+ local canoers and paddlers joining us for this memorable performance, participants will paddle in a coordinated, slow-moving procession. An epic celebration of Lake Ontario along the Toronto Waterfront, Melissa McGill’s project maps Toronto’s harbour and waterfront biosphere with the lake’s own vocabulary expressed through its natural colour palette. By giving visual voice to the interconnected relationships above and below the waters, the project invites us to shift our perspective to participate in and learn from nature’s wisdom and creativity.
McGill has developed this site-specific natural colour story in collaboration with Jason Logan of the Toronto Ink Company. Together, McGill and Logan gathered and worked with natural and found material from the waters and shoreline to collaborate with the creative expression of the lake itself. Featuring materials such as goldenrod, clay, algae, red brick, and wild grape sourced from Leslie Street Spit, Gibraltar Point, and the re-naturalized Don River among others, these colours have been used to create vibrant wind-activated colour field paintings that will dance above the canoe procession to communicate Lake Ontario’s vibrant resilience both above and below its waters. Together water, colour, wind, and paddlers find and speak the lake’s language and tell its vital story.