Toronto Installation Makes Art From the Suburbs

Toronoto’s Leona Drive Project celebrates the monotony of suburban life in a new art installation. As part of the Toronto International Art Fair, more than a dozen artists have created installations in five vacant postwar bungalows on the quiet Canadian street of Leona Drive, before they are monstrously demolished and likely replaced by faux-Victorian townhouses. Co-curated by Janine Marchessault and Michael Prokopow, the Leona Drive Project commemorates and explores the transformation of suburbia, by archiving post-war values in a sensitive, but critical manner. The exhibit, which opened October 23, features one particular home that’s hard to ignore from An Te Liu, a University of Toronto professor of architecture, landscape, and design. Liu sealed the windows and doors of one of the bungalows and painted the structure fluorescent green—mimicking the toy pieces of property in the game of Monopoly. The Leon Drive Project will be displayed until October 31.