Cultural Districts

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

Downtown Core
Ground mural, Living Arts Drive

If you’ve been in the downtown in recent weeks, you will likely have seen the new colourful ground murals along Living Arts Drive. Interconnection is a new temporary public artwork by Moonlight Murals Collective. This series of ground murals run along the buffer zones of the cycling lanes on Living Arts Drive and tell the story of people in a growing city like Mississauga. Each thematic panel focuses on the relationship between humans and the natural environment, inspiring viewers to discover their imagination, emotion, interaction, and relationship with their surroundings.

Clarkson

Banner post art, Clarkson. Image Credit: Kyle Jarencio

Walking along Lakeshore Road West in Clarkson, you will notice Clarkson Cultural District’s newest public artwork – ten banner posts wrapped in public art by local artists Yen Linh Thai and Sima Naseem. The designs follow the theme of ‘treasured community’ and depict unique community features, areas and activities of the Clarkson community that are treasured, taking inspiration from its people, diverse businesses and natural surroundings. In collaboration with Clarkson BIA, the City commissioned STEPS Initiative and local artists Yen Linh Thai and Sima Naseem. The beautified banner posts aim to encourage more pedestrian activity in Clarkson by created an enhanced and vibrant main street.

MaltonThe Mobilizer 5.0 is a prop to facilitate conversations within a community. In this context, at the Malton Greenway, it will be used to broadly discuss our changing climate and the importance of neighbourhood green spaces through various inputs and outputs. As a multi-faceted performance piece, it will occupy the site by being pushed through the trail and the mall while engaging with the local community. The formal language of the structure is informed by its surroundings - in particular the infrastructure found at the back of the mall’s loading dock - the mobilizer 5.0 desires to be useful with all its gadgets, to be seen and heard.

It will listen and react as the local passersby interact with it, it will acknowledge their presence through their motion and voices. The more engagement it receives, the more it disrupts its biases and internal thoughts.

Mobilizer 5.0 will be heading to Malton Greenway on August 4th and 6th, 2022.

For more information, take a look at the project page here.

Downtown Core

Skate park murals, Sculpture Court Park, City Hall. Image Credit: Tylor Key Carr

The City’s Public Art Program commissioned local artist Ray Vidal to create a digital mural series in the Sculpture Court Skate Park, located right next to City Hall. The artwork was then printed and installed on the walls surrounding the skate park.

This digital mural series is about the constant flow of energy that skateboarders and breaker dancers channel to create something cosmic that can change the course of someone’s life. How these activities can bring you closer to being at peace with one’s own self, realize what is important in your life and how to work hard towards your goals, hopes and dreams.

As part of National Youth Week in May 2022, the artist and Public Art team hosted a launch event to showcase the artwork and celebrate the project. The artist performed with his band - the Five and Tens - alongside local DJs Ronny Royce and LJones. Around 50 local skateboarders and community members attended the event, enjoyed live music and skate competitions, and viewed the artwork.

For more information, take a look at the project page here.

Downtown Core
From November to December, 2021, Mississauga’s Celebration Square launched Light Up the Square, an annual outdoor, multi-week winter destination festival of lights in Mississauga’s downtown core!

As part of the festival, there was an open call to artists looking for interactive and light-based artworks that could activate the space in Celebration Square. Three artists were selected through this process and their artworks were installed in the square for the duration of the festival:

Carriers by Meghan Cheng. Image credit: Adam Pulicicchio

Carriers is an interactive light sculpture based on a flock of birds taking flight into the sky. The installation allows visitors to see their joys and hardships of the past two years translated into pulses of light and sent out into the world by the birds. The installation is intended to instill a sense of hope for the viewers - it acknowledges the highs and lows we’ve gone through throughout the pandemic and creates something beautiful out of our experiences.

To participate, visitors could type a message through a webpage which was sent to the birds. These messages were then transformed into unique pulses of light that were transmitted through the artwork. Every participant’s output was unique, based on their individual text input.

Beacon Silo by Chris Foster Image credit: Adam Pulicicchio Beacon Silo mimics the iconic silo forms of southern Ontario, gesturing to them in a playful, imaginative way. Housed within the structure, a slowly rotating mirrored sculpture projects dynamic columns of light on to the surrounding landscape. This beacon, both lighthouse and disco ball, is visible from a great distance and creates a constantly changing spectacle throughout the day and night.

Candycombs by Monkey C Interactive. Image credit: Adam Pulicicchio

Monkey C Interactive’s practise centres on engaging experiences that combine technology and art to inspire play, impart a sense of wonder, and reward curiosity. Their work is animated by human activity to ignite conversation, spark imaginations, and create a sense of shared community in public spaces. Candycombs is an interactive dance floor, where users trigger lights and sounds by stepping on the panels, providing a space for participants to come together through music and dance.

For more information, take a look at the project page here.

Clarkson, Cooksville, Downtown, Malton, Port Credit and Streetsville Cultural Districts

Banners representing all the Cultural Districts by Mississauga Civic Centre. Image credit: Tori Lambermont

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In late summer 2021, banners representing the six Cultural Districts were installed on light poles across Mississauga, animating and enhancing the city’s streetscapes. These banners are a continuation of a joint project that was initiated in 2020 between the City of Mississauga’s Public Art Program and Tourism Mississauga‘s #MississaugaMade movement, in response to COVID-19 recovery.

For the 2021 edition of the project, the Public Art Program commissioned a new series of custom-designed banners and expanded the partnership to include Mississauga’s five Business Improvement Associations (BIAs). Six “neighbourhood portrait” banners were designed by local multidisciplinary artist Asli Alin (@aslialin), one for each of the six Cultural Districts. The Cultural District-specific banners are on display in their respective communities as well as part of a cohesive installation collecting all the banners in the Downtown.

The designs for the 2021 Cultural District-specific banners are seen below:

Clarkson	Cooksville	Downtown
Malton	Port Credit	Streetsville

In the artist’s words…

“My goal was to capture neighbourhood portraits, each with a hint of local flavour, reflecting their natural habitat, cultural identity, and heritage. My portraits celebrate the unique culture and characteristics of Mississauga’s neighbourhoods, while unifying the city in an impactful and creative way to foster local pride and positivity. Each banner utilizes a similar visual style, employing colours from the existing colour palettes (of the BIAs) along with complementary colours; creating a cohesive yet individually colourful street banner collection.”- Asli Alin

Banners created in 2020 for the first run in the project, designed by local artist Pranavi Suthagar (@notpranavi), have also been repurposed and installed in Meadowvale, Applewood, Churchill Meadows, Erin Mills and Erindale. Through commissioning Cultural District-specific banners in 2021 and repurposing 2020 artwork, the banner program is working towards supporting local businesses and bringing vibrancy to communities across the city.

Downtown Cultural District

Image credit: Creos.

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From July 30 – September 5, 2021, Mississauga Celebration Square is home to Mi Casa, Your Casa, an interactive installation designed by Mexico City-based artists Esrawe and Cadena. Visitors are invited to step inside one of 14 red frame houses and spend a moment reflecting on being back home on the square.

Mi Casa, Your Casa is inspired by the mercados of Latin America, lively street markets where human connections are made every day.

The installation features a series of three-dimensional red frames that illustrate the warmth, comfort, and safety of our homes. With their basic shape recognizable by all, the tiny houses form a blank canvas for community engagement and activity, where people of all ages can socialize in a playful spirit.

When a casa is empty, a welcoming white glow bids you to enter. Once inside, the glow intensifies to show that someone is home.