Among the resulting 80 applicants, five artists – including Vickerd – were chosen to submit detailed proposals. Vickerd knew the BIA wanted something that addressed the history and future of the location, so he began researching what architecture had existed near the LRT site in the past. He discovered that, between 1873 and 1956, the one-room Elia Public School once stood near the sculpture’s current location before being demolished to make way for future developments.

For Vickerd, the old schoolhouse, and the education it would have provided as a driver for social and communal change, neatly connected the past to the present with how another school – 91��ɫ – has helped shape and drive the community it belongs to. He found his inspiration and submitted his proposal to the Duke Heights BIA: a multi-faceted open design and architectural abstraction of the school made of Corten steel, which has a rusted metal finish that he says would give the sculpture a weathered, aged appearance, embodying a quiet assertiveness that is distinctive in its depth and the richness of its colour.

The work ahead wasn’t without its pressures. Vickerd, who has previously created sculptures for cities like Edmonton, Thunder Bay, Calgary, Ottawa and others, had never worked on something quite so close to home as 91��ɫ, where’s he worked for the last 20 years. “I can almost see the location of the sculpture from my office window on campus. I knew all my colleagues are going to be driving by it every day, and our students live in that community,” he says. 

“There was a pressure of doing something that honoured a community that I was part of.”

Nonetheless, Vickerd’s art often works with notions of history and community, which made “The Heights” project well within his comfort zone. “The way I think about public art is it’s about giving back to the community,” he says. “It can’t be about making something that I just want to see or that I think is cool. It has to be something that comes from that community and contributes back to it.”

The design process – including engineering revisions and community feedback – took six months, then the actual creation took another six months. Vickerd credits the University too with not just the academic knowledge, but practical knowledge he’s gained that enabled him to create projects like “The Heights” sculpture. “It’s the accumulation of years of working with my colleagues and students in a way that can only happen at a university like 91��ɫ, which allows us to push boundaries, try out new ideas, think through things and experiment with materials. So, when opportunities like this come up, we can then better develop projects that are successful and create a greater experience in the community for the people who live it day.”

       
Part of the experience he hopes “The Heights” creates is the opportunity for locals to reflect on the physical, social, and economic changes in the neighborhood with the opportunity to literally see the community in new ways.

“Because its design is open, and there’s so much negative space, it changes and evolves as you move around. It was important to me to give the viewer the opportunity to have the piece shift and change. It’s never static. It’s never just one perspective. I’m trying to connect that to how we experience community and how we experience urban geography. As we move through the city, things change,” says Vickerd.

Currently, the sculpture – funded and managed by Duke Heights BIA, but now a permanent collection of the City of Toronto – is visible because of its size, but not yet accessible for closer viewing. Remaining landscaping and roadwork must be finished first, then the piece becomes open to the public.

Vickerd is excited for residents then – and even now – to take in the sculpture, and what he intends it to do more than anything else.

“The goal of this project is to acknowledge the historic significance of the site while celebrating the changing dynamic of the Keele and Finch intersection. ‘The Heights’ accomplishes this through a design that balances the monumental sculpture with a sense of dynamic tension and wonder. This sculpture is about the relationship between time and memory. It reflects on the role of history in providing a guiding light that illuminates a path forward into the future,” he says.

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Now, at 26, he’s turned that passion into his career. 

Joshi is a producer and president of Fae Pictures. Working out of Los Angeles and Toronto, he and his team are building an impressive track record of movies and TV series.

And, as he gears up to start production on Queen Tut, a full-length feature film about an Egyptian teenager who travels to Toronto to become a drag queen, he’s helping the next generation of film, TV and digital professionals to get the hands-on experience they need by involving them in his work. 

“Students at 91��ɫ have great opportunities to learn this craft by creating their own productions. I really benefited from that. There is room for making mistakes and getting great feedback from our professors. But with this opportunity to work with my team on Queen Tut, they’ll be on a real-world production that is financed, has a distribution plan, and investors we have to answer to. If you make a mistake on a student film, it’s part of the learning process. But if you make a mistake on a larger, commercial set, like Queen Tut, there are bigger ramifications, so they get a taste of the world they will experience when they graduate.”

This kind of real world is enabled by Cinespace Studios’ new management team who renewed their commitment to 91��ɫ with a $3.12 million gift in November 2021.

The investment that began with the Mirkopoulos family created a dedicated space called the 91��ɫ Motion Media Studio in the Cinespace facility in Etobicoke for students of 91��ɫ’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design (AMPD) to use state of the art technology and interact with the pros. And Cinespace has some serious cred – acclaimed series like The Handmaid’s Tale and Umbrella Academy are made there. 

Joshi got a similar experience in between third and fourth year at 91��ɫ when Ingrid Veninger, an AMPD professor and highly regarded film director, hired him to work on the production team of her feature, Porcupine Lake. 

“It was a bigger budget than anything I’d worked with and a working environment where there were higher risks, because you were building something that was commercial that had worldwide distribution. I remember having to do things like booking a hotel room for one of our production executives. A simple thing, but if that guy showed up and he didn’t have a hotel room and was stranded for the night, that would be bad form. There is a lot to do on a production and this was a great opportunity to work with Ingrid and learn from her and build my producing ability.”

Veninger, who is also associate director of the Motion Media Studio, agrees that it’s essential for students to see that a production is not just about the big names in the credits. 

“Sometimes students don’t have a full sense of the different pathways to this industry. I see students’ eyes light up when they get on a set at Cinespace and see people in the production offices, carpentry and art department, and they start to think, ‘This is how I can access this world. It’s not just about directing, writing, cinematography, or editing.’”

Cinespace President and Co-Managing Partner Ashley Rice, who got the film and TV production bug when she was 11, is a firm believer in learning by doing. “We can read about what it is to drive a car, but actually driving one requires you to get behind the wheel. The 91��ɫ Motion Media Studio at Cinespace provides the vehicle for the students to drive.”

On the more macro scale, Motion Media Studio Director (and AMPD professor) Ken Rogers points to the disruption-innovation that is changing the traditional film and TV industry – how Netflix and an increasing number of streaming platforms’ demand for quality content is transforming the screen industry. 

“Toronto is a global centre for film and television production. 91��ɫ’s Department of Cinema and Media Arts has a world-class reputation for producing talented screen industry professionals for the region. 91��ɫ’s strategic partnership with Cinespace helps prepare our students to enter this changing environment, and to upskill professionals already working in the field. We are creating a training hub for workforce development that will help make a vital contribution to the economic development of Toronto and Ontario.”

Rice agrees, noting that in 2021, Ontario had a record $2.88 billion in total production activity, with a goal to grow the industry to $5 billion in the next few years.

“We can achieve this by enabling workforce development. Cinespace is dedicated to supporting initiatives to create visible pathways to jobs in our industry. Working with 91��ɫ to educate future filmmakers is very much a part of this cause.”

The post Full Circle: Alum partners with Cinespace studios and creates student opportunities appeared first on Ascend Magazine.