Views From Home: Facing North

Views From Home: Facing North is a short video first shown as part of Edie Steiner's 2014 exhibition at Gallery 44 Members Space, Toronto, and the recordings continued until a key element in the frame, the site of Ford York, is no longer visible. The project explores the changing view from the filmmaker's home on the Toronto / Tkaronto waterfront from 2005 to 2020 and is a record of rapid urban development over multiple seasons. The work began as an analogue photography project on medium format film, gradually changing from analogue to digital processes over the timeframe of the recordings. Central to the frame is the site of Fort York, which over time disappears from view as years of construction unfold. Key historical moments witnessed by the landscape, a contested site of colonization and war, yet protected by its First Nations at critical junctures are cited on-screen to an ambient music souncscape.