Community Mural

A partnership between East End Arts, Women Paint, Native Women in the Arts, and the Riverside BIA, ‘Women Paint Riverside’ was an exciting opportunity to beautify and enhance the Riverside neighbourhood with a series of interconnected murals, exploring the relationship between the vibrant urban Riverside community and the Don River from which it takes its name. The project builds upon the area’s existing public art legacy, and features the work of 20+ street artists, as well as supporting participants from Girls Mural Camp 2021 to put what they learned at camp this summer to the test as apprentice mural artists.

Working with co-curatorial consultants Bareket Kezwer and Ariel Smith, Women Paint Riverside brought diverse women and gender marginalized street artists, muralists and graffiti writers together to create new work, bring attention to the importance of the Don River within an urban setting, and share their diverse stories in public spaces—a place these voices are often underrepresented.

Women Paint Riverside took place on the treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, which is also the traditional territories of the Huron-Wendat, the Haudenosaunee confederacy and the Anishinaabe. This territory is subject to the dish with one spoon treaty, a covenant between the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee to share and care for the land and resources in the lower Great Lakes area.

In many Indigenous nations across Turtle Island, women and Two Spirit people have long carried sacred responsibilities to protect the water, and are strong leaders in the growing movement for water sovereignty around the great lakes. Given the close relationship of the Riverside community to the Don River and Lake Ontario, the murals for this exciting laneway transformation explore the element of water.

Laneways and alleys have historically been areas that do not always feel safe for women and other gender marginalized people, and can be associated with the threat of violence. Projects like Women Paint and Girls Mural Camp take up space in the public sphere and help facilitate discussions about important issues that affect our overlapping communities such as misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, white supremacy, colonization and gentrification.

About Women Paint Riverside:
‘Women Paint Riverside: Currents of Change’ is a public art program about transformation, community, and our relationship to the Don River and Lake Ontario into which the Riverside community flows. Twenty+ murals that form this project add beauty and colour to the laneways in the Riverside community, celebrate our important relationship with water, and were created by women and gender diverse artists from various backgrounds. This project is a partnership between East End Arts, Women Paint, Native Women in the Arts, and the Riverside BIA. #WomenPaintRiverside

This project was made possible with funding support by StreetArt Toronto, Hullmark, Streetcar Developments, and the Riverside BIA.

For more information on this mural visit:
https://eastendarts.ca/women-paint-riverside/

Where to Find This Mural

Location: 1 Hamilton St, Toronto, ON M4M 2C4 Get Directions

Accessibility: Easily Accessible