A Lake Story, a new commission by artist Melissa McGill, takes the form of a large-scale canoe procession that writes Lake Ontario’s story through color, across the sky and water. A Lake Story features 400+ local canoers and paddlers together in a coordinated, slow-moving procession. An epic celebration of Lake Ontario and the re-naturalization of the Don River, the project maps Toronto’s harbor and waterfront biosphere with the lake’s own vocabulary expressed through its natural color palette. By giving visual voice to the interconnected relationships above and below the waters, the project invites us to shift our perspective to participate in and learn from nature’s wisdom and creativity.
McGill has developed this site-specific natural color story in collaboration with Jason Logan of the Toronto Ink Company. Together, McGill and Logan gathered and worked with natural and found material from the waters and shoreline to collaborate with the creative expression of the lake itself. Featuring materials such as goldenrod, clay, algae, red brick, and wild grape sourced from Leslie Street Spit, Gibraltar Point, and the re-naturalized Don River among others, these colours have been used to create vibrant wind-activated colour field paintings that dance above the canoe procession to communicate Lake Ontario’s vibrant resilience both above and below its waters. Together water, colour, wind, and paddlers find and speak the lake’s language and tell its vital story. McGill collaborated with Elder Duke Redbird, whose insights, stories, perspectives and wisdom have guided A Lake Story since its earliest stages .