Toronto+Vancouver City of Labyrinths Project

Jo was kind enough to say hello and ask me a little bit about the Labyrinths I painted on Augusta Avenue during Pedestrian Sunday . . .

Wonderful surprise to see her in depth instagram post…

Thank you Jo!

Happy Walking!

“In Kensington Market this past weekend and came across these Labyrinths made by HiMY SYeD. ⁣
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As I learned from the artist, Labyrinths were essential to ancient civilizations, the earliest ones built out of stone along the sea to capture fish as sustenance. ⁣
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To HiMY , his Labyrinths are a form of “urban acupuncture.”

They encourage people to explore space, place, decision-making, choice, habit, and even perseverance.

As some complete the path, others may cheat and break the course.

It’s great that a simple urban intervention like this can create surprise, participation, and play🤸‍♂️⁣
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While a maze is meant to puzzle and confuse, the Labyrinth will always lead you to its centre ❤️”

⁣ – Jo Minhinnett

There is a simplexity to this drawing by Katie Brookoff.

Numerous Classic Labyrinths have been found along the shores of many islands, continents, seas and rivers.

At High Tide, the fish came in and may have swam up and into the Labyrinth.

As Low Tide gradually approached, any number of fish may have remained submerged in the inclined pockets of water within the lanes of the Labyrinth, yet without any direct watery way of escape.

People presumably returned at Low Tide, picked up their catch, went home and ate well that day.

There is a reasonable assumption that for thousands of years, these simple three and seven lane Classic Stone Labyrinths, created upon inclined slopes to the water, employing knowledge of tidal timings, were Humanity’s original sustainable fish farms.

I tend to agree with this hypothesis.

To illustrate this concept, here is a simple three lane classic Labyrinth that I made last week, upon the naturescaped Habitat Island in Vancouver’s False Creek, just opposite the location of where I recently completed the Vancouver Public Labyrinth.

Evidenced by the darker wet and lighter coloured dry stones in these images…

Tides in False Creek may rise and fall as much as 15 feet in one day!

Now, all we need is for False Creek to be clean enough again.

Who knows?

Maybe then we might catch a Minnowtaur or two!

Recently, while exploring the photo sharing site Flickr, I stumbled upon a West Toronto labyrinth I never knew existed!

Having learned it was within biking distance, I cycled over on Thanksgiving Sunday for a visit and a walk.

It was exciting. Why?

Because here was a labyrinth I had not painted, yet had been here for years. Over time, people have shared their own sense of discovery, of stumbling upon, of surprise, experienced in their first encounters with one of my numerous labyrinths.

This thanksgiving weekend morning, it was my turn. To discover. To be surprised. To walk a labyrinth others had made. And to be appreciative.

Apparently this aqua themed labyrinth was created in May of 2008 to complement The Species of The Humber Watershed Mural which arches over the school’s playground entrance.

Both mural and labyrinth are wonderful additions to Howard Junior Public School’s playground in Roncesvalles Village, west end Toronto.

Time well spent and worth a future visit.