Cultural Districts

Cooksville “C” sign

If there’s one thing Cooksville is known for – it’s the rich, diverse culinary scene. Our Food Stories: Cooksville is a temporary public art project, completed by STEPS Public Art and commissioned by the City of Mississauga. Last summer, STEPS engaged with community members in Cooksville to ask questions such as: What does food mean to you? How does food impact your life or culture? Where are your favourite places in Cooksville to experience food? and What is your favourite food memory? STEPS conducted pop-up engagement at various community events, and collected over 130 quotes on Cooksville’s experiences, memories and connections to food. The community responses highlight how closely family memories are tied to food, how cherished recipes are passed on through generations, and how food from just about every corner of the world can be found in Cooksville.

STEPS commissioned artists from Mississauga to design temporary public artworks to display in Cooksville, using the community responses as inspiration. Food City, designed by Ashley Mozo juxtaposes the Cooksville community’s well-loved dishes over the City blocks, streets and stores of Cooksville. Ashley’s artwork is displayed on the Cooksville “C” sign, two local bus shelter ads, posters and light pole banners on Dundas Street this summer.

More For Us to Share by Debbie Woo, represents the human connections made through food, and the simple enjoyment of eating that brings comfort and the nostalgia that can transport you to different places. Debbie’s artwork incorporates hand-written quotes shared from the community in the wrap design. Her artwork is designed for an electric box wrap at the north-east corner of Hurontario St and Dundas St E.

The Cooksville “C” Sign will also feature an Augmented Reality (AR) component through the free Artivive app with animations designed by Jenn Liv. By downloading the free app, you can hover your phone over the Cooksville “C” sign and components of the artwork will come to life through Augmented Reality.

Stop by Cooksville this summer to feast your eyes on the vibrant artworks which celebrate food in Cooksville.

For more information about the project visit: https://stepspublicart.org/project/cooksville-food-stories/

https://stepspublicart.org/ @stepspublicart

More information about the artists:

https://www.ashleymozo.com/ @mozoashley

https://www.debbiewoo.com/ @woohyunji

https://www.jennliv.com/ @jennliv

Downtown Core, Cooksville, Port Credit

Chalk jam art, Community Commons Park

Join STEPS and the City of Mississauga in a series of community arts-based workshops and activities across three Mississauga Cultural Districts. The Mo(ve)ment project will feature a series of fun, family friendly activities led by local artists and collaborators in Cooksville, Downtown Core and Port Credit all summer. Mo(ve)ment aims to provide opportunities for the community to gather, build social capital and engage in a creative way. The project will temporarily animate and activate parks and public spaces to bring moments of surprise and joy for residents in their neighbourhoods.

Through a series of events alternating between Cooksville, Downtown Core and Port Credit from May to October, you will be able to participate in paint and chalk jams, workshops such as spice painting, instrument-making and balcony gardening, enjoy live music, free snacks and much more!

Here is a line up of events for June and July.

• June 1, 2023: Commuter Wellness in Cooksville
• June 3, 2023: Skate Park Paint Jam in Port Credit Memorial Park
• June 15, 2023: Balcony Gardening Workshop in Downtown Mississauga
• June 28, 2023: Spice Watercolour Painting Workshop in Cooksville
• July 15, 2023: Cyanotyping Workshop in Port Credit
• July 19, 2023: Doodle Jam and Interactive Tapestry Mural in Downtown Mississauga

Here are photos from the kick-off event held May 13th:

Pop-up seating art, Lakeshore Road West

For more details on the events, artists and performers

https://stepspublicart.org/project/movement/.

https://stepspublicart.org/ @stepspublicart

@Saugaculture

Check back for more details on July – October events.

Pop-up seating art, Lakeshore Road West

If you live or visit Clarkson, you may have noticed a vibrant new mural and pop-up seating on Lakeshore Road West. Living Among Urban Nature by Soon Cho is a digitally designed mural which celebrates the small town vibes and growing community of Clarkson as it emerges as a place where themes of nature, urbanism and sustainability come together. Throughout Soon’s mural, a character known as Niña is hidden among the trees, giant flowers and buildings of Clarkson. How many Niñas can you find here? The pop-up seating, installed by Gripblock, will be on this site for the community to enjoy until October 2023. This project aims to create more vibrant and welcoming public spaces in Clarkson where the community can gather, socialize and play. This project was completed by Artscape Atelier and commissioned by the City of Mississauga.

Be sure to stop by Clarkson to check out the new mural, grab a bite from a local business and enjoy a seat in the seasonal pop-up seating!

Retaining wall art, Lakeshore Road West

More information:

https://www.artscape.ca/ @artscapeto

https://sooncho.ca/

Downtown Core

Mural artwork, IDEA Square One Innovation Hub

Have you heard of the IDEA Square One Innovation Hub which opened in Square One Shopping Centre recently? This Innovation hub, home to IDEA Mississauga, is a 4,300 square-foot facility for start-ups, scale-ups, corporate leaders and investors to collaborate and grow together. In the spirit of entrepreneurship and to celebrate the creation of this exciting hub in Mississauga, IDEA and the City of Mississauga’s Culture Division commissioned a mural. A place for peoples and a place for us, by Ojibwe multidisciplinary artist Karly Cywink is a digital illustration, printing on vinyl which expands on Karly’s fascination with the sky and everything that it can hold. The artwork explores the many symbols and meanings of skies.

For more information on IDEA Mississauga visit: https://www.ideamississauga.ca/about/idea/

For more information on the mural visit: https://www.mississauga.ca/arts-and-culture/arts/public-art/temporary-public-art/a-sky-for-peoples-and-a-space-for-us/

More information about the artist:
https://www.karlycywink.com/ @karlycywinkart

Mural artwork, Mississauga Fire Station #104

Mississauga Fire Station #104, in partnership with the City’s Culture Division, commissioned a mural for the garage doors of the fire station. Flame of Life by Emily Kewageshig explores the many symbols of fire held by Anishinaabeg people, which include power of renewal, rebirth, change and survival. Emily is an Anishinaabe artist and visual storyteller from Saugeen First Nation no. 29. Her work captures the interconnection of life forms using traditional and contemporary materials and centres around themes of birth, death and rebirth as they are closely intertwined in her cultural teachings and personal lived experiences.

For more information visit: https://www.mississauga.ca/arts-and-culture/arts/public-art/temporary-public-art/the-flame-of-life/

More information about the artist:
@emilykewageshig https://www.emily-kewageshig.com/

Banner artwork, Mississauga downtown core

Summer connections, is a six-piece banner series by local artist and entrepreneur Ai. Commissioned by the City’s Culture Division, the banners dotted Mississauga’s Downtown Core last summer. Through the banner series, the artist asks viewers to question their ideas about their connection with community. The artwork explores collective stories of diverse people bound together by their sense of community, duty, passion, and culture.

The banners are currently being re-purposed into a mixed-media temporary public art sculpture, in collaboration with another artist. Stay tuned for more details!

For more information visit: https://www.mississauga.ca/arts-and-culture/arts/public-art/temporary-public-art/summer-connections/

More information about the artist:
@ai_dezign or @dcentralizm

Sugar Mountain is a realistic, but surreal bakery case sculpture filled with cakes and pastries.

Winter at Celebration Square can be magical time, with skating, warming stations, twinkling lights and piping hot chocolate. If you visited Celebration Square this winter season, you would have experienced numerous digital public art pieces located throughout the square, which added to the awe and magic of this place. The City’s Culture Division commissioned multiple digital public artworks which included Sugar Mountain, by Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky, Echoes by Nate Nettleton and Diaphonous Charms by Asli Alin.

Diaphonous Charms is a series of parametric art installations created with iridescent colour effect acrylic sheets.

Echoes is a rotating disco ball housed within an iridescent acrylic prism.

For more information visit: https://www.mississauga.ca/arts-and-culture/arts/public-art/digital-public-art/

More information about the artists:

http://www.wepplermahovsky.com/ @weppler_and_mahovsky

http://www.natenettletonart.com/ @nnnnnate

https://aslialin.com/ @aslialin

Park Fence Art, Streetsville’s Pollinator Showcase Garden

Have you ever been to Streetsville’s Pollinator Showcase Garden? A hidden gem located in Streetsville, this park on Queen Street South is a great spot to take a break, stop and smell the flowers and check out the fascinating pollinator species hard at work! To make the park more visible from the street and encourage more visitors, we worked with Toronto Artscape Atelier to commission artist Debbie Woo who has designed and installed a temporary public art piece on the park fence.

Inspired by both, the motivations of the Pollinator Showcase Garden and the Streetsville community spirit, the design by Debbie Woo highlights the critical role of the pollinators that affect our day to day lives, in a way that hopes to engage the community to think beyond the park and incorporate ways to help preserve our pollinators for future generations to enjoy.

Debbie Woo engaged with the Streetsville community over the summer to learn about their favourite park activities and favourite native plants and pollinator species, which she incorporated into the design. Blue jays, white tailed deer, western honey bee, wild blue phlox and beardtongue foxglove are just some of the species you can spot in the design. Some of the community’s favourite park activities that can be seen in the design include birdwatching, beekeeping and canoeing. Debbie Woo focused on sourcing environmentally sustainable materials and paints, to protect the pollinators and create a sustainable piece. The final piece is a beautiful wooden laser-cut artwork made with birch plywood that is finished with milk paint, and naturally sourced tung and pine oils.

Fun fact: the names of the native plants and pollinators are discreetly carved into each piece, for those curious enough to look for them.

Be sure to check out the artwork this fall before it’s de-installed for the winter, and explore the pollinator showcase garden!

Artscape Atelier: Webpage

Twitter: @Artscape

Instagram:@artscapeto

Debbie Woo: https://www.debbiewoo.com/about

Instagram: @woohyunji

Exhibition case, Westwood Transit Terminal

This fall, Westwood Square Transit Terminal has become much more than just a bus stop! Designed to encourage community exchange, and create a vibrant, welcoming space for commuters, art experimental studio SHEEEP has designed six Community Exchange Pods that will be located at the transit terminal and feature mini libraries and exhibition cases. The mini library pods, colour coded in vibrant hues of blue and green, follow the idea of a free book exchange – you can take a book, and in exchange, leave a book. This is an opportunity for the community to bring their well-loved books to share with the community and pick up a good read for the bus ride home.

The exhibition cases, colour coded in a bright pink red hue, showcase small artworks and creations by the local community. The community creations will be seasonally swapped to provide an opportunity to display new works that are created in Malton.

SHEEEP Studio will also be producing zines throughout the year in collaboration with local community spaces such as the community centre, upcoming youth hub, and Museums of Mississauga. The zine-making workshops will take place in Malton throughout the year where the community will have the chance to create a zine and share their ideas and knowledge on a variety of topics. Printed copies of the zines will also be placed in the mini library pods so you have a chance to share your zine with the Malton community.

Keep an eye out for more information on the zine-making workshops and be sure to stop by Westwood Transit Terminal to check out the pods all year long until November 2023.

SHEEEP Studio: https://sheeep.studio/

Instagram: @sheeep.studio

Downtown Core, CooksvilleGround mural, Princess Royal Drive and Living Arts Centre Drive area

We’re paving the way for people this summer by transforming some of our streets and sidewalks into open and active spaces for the community to enjoy.
Sharing Lanes is a tactical urbanism project that will see temporary, people-friendly gathering places installed along select streets in the City’s downtown and Cooksville neighbourhoods. The project’s main goal is to put people first by making our streets inviting and accessible for all. As the program rolls out, residents and visitors will enjoy:

• Sidewalks with whimsical new seating, painted games along the boulevard and additional planters and greenery
• Transformed streets where one lane is replaced with safe community space including lounging spaces, library programming, music-based play equipment, chalkboards and natural game boards
• Vibrant public art including ground murals and bike lane artwork
• Bicycle repair station and solar phone charging station

This project is building on the success of the tactical urbanism project we launched on Living Arts Drive in 2019.

The City of Mississauga worked with with STEPS Initiative and artists Jieun June Kim and Andre Kan to commission two guardrail murals on Jaguar Valley and a ground mural on Dundas Street in Cooksville. The murals complement the Sharing Lanes play pods on Jaguar Valley, and act as a backdrop for community activity, leisure and gathering. The guardrail murals, by Jieun June Kim, in her signature style, depict jaguars running along Jaguar Valley, and colourful shapes and a whimsical scenery on Dundas Street.

Guardrail murals, Jaguar Valley. Artist: Jieun June Kim

The ground mural design, by Andre Kan, is influenced by interconnection and gathering shown in the free floating objects within an abstract landscape. The birds resemble unity and migration as a reference to all the different cultures that have migrated from all of the world and now resident in the Cooksville neighbourhood. The community has expressed curiosity, excitement and welcomed the murals, as one of the first temporary public art projects in the Cooksville neighbourhood this year.

Ground mural, Dundas Street. Artist: Andre Kan. Image Credit: Dave Coulson