Making Music, Making Change
Advocacy can take many forms. Being a spokesperson for a cause, attending a protest or signing a petition are all important kinds of political action—but other acts can also have lasting and important impacts.
I was reminded of this in September, when I was asked to speak on a panel at the album launch party for Requiem for the Ontario Science Centre, the brainchild of popular Toronto DJ and music producer Tony Price. Rather than using the launch as an occasion for self-promotion, Price worked with urbanist Dan Seljak to create an evening that would open an intergenerational conversation about the storied museum’s history, its abrupt and unnecessary closure, and the future of its bespoke building by Raymond Moriyama and Ted Teshima.
I’ve attended too many events to count (and a dozen on the Ontario Science Centre alone), but the evening had a vibe that was utterly different—and thoroughly refreshing.
Some 100 people crowded into Space Unltd, a white-box venue run by a young couple with an eye to nurturing Toronto’s communities of creatives. (Think poetry slams, listening parties, tattoo and cake artists.) In contrast to the more uniform demographic of many architect-centered events, it was a truly mixed crowd, with people from different walks of life and a large proportion of zoomers.
Price offered up a heartfelt reflection on creative process, art as a political act and the facility’s sprawling Science Arcade’s appearance in his dreamscapes. Seljak presented a land acknowledgment that pointed to ways that colonialism is embedded in our cities, and to our responsibilities in reconciliation. Moriyama Teshima partner Brian Rudy commented on the Science Centre’s history, and its uniqueness in connecting the city to the ravine system. Azure senior editor Stefan Novakovic spoke about critically examining the values represented by heritage buildings on a case-by-case basis. I talked about debunking the government’s justification for closing the Science Centre as an act of public service. Something about the space, and the occasion, brought an uncommon ease of rapport, honesty and candour to the conversation.
We started late, and we all spoke for too long. But everyone in the room was listening. With the Q&A portion, they were contributing too, asking insightful questions and sharing their own experiences of the Science Centre. Price commented on how all of us gathering together and talking like this was a political act. And in a final act of grace, he gave the last word to a fellow artist, Leala Hewak, whose book Too Fun became the last photo documentation of the “doomed playhouse.”
In the mix-and-mingle after, Seljak, Price and I talked about how art-making and heritage are intertwined. Works like Price’s LP, and the event to launch it, affirm the shuttered Science Centre’s role as an ongoing creative influence, contribute to a collective cultural memory of the place, and record the history of its sudden closure. What the evening made clear is that advocacy can mean making art, convening conversations and keeping alive the stories of the places that shape us. Those acts of art and memory are civic actions in their own right—and ones that help ensure our cities remain places worth caring for, and worth fighting for.
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