TMU Earth Stories: Things to watch during Earth Month
Photo by Spencer Watson
Each April, the world comes together for Earth Month. This annual event — culminating on April 22 for Earth Day (external link, opens in new window) — offers an opportunity to raise awareness and advocate for change around the issues impacting our planet and to celebrate achievements of the environmental movement.
Watch and listen to Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) alumni and community members as they shed light on environmental issues through their talents, passion and personal experiences.
LOVESICK caughwawkuonykauk
Lauren Bridle (external link, opens in new window) , Masters in Documentary Media ’17
Lovesick explores the changing landscape of a Canadian lake through the stories of the people who live on its shores. Lovesick Lake is one of the smallest bodies of water along the Trent-Severn Waterway — a canal system that connects Lake Huron to Lake Ontario. Once a prosperous region used by First Nations people for hunting and fishing, Lovesick Lake is now a popular cottage destination. Shoreline development has increased exponentially while the health of the lake and surrounding land has declined. Lovesick compels viewers to ask, “At what cost does Canada’s cottage country come at?”
Edward Burtynsky on African Studies
Edward Burtynsky (external link, opens in new window) , Image Arts ’82, Honorary Doctorate ’07
In Edward Burtynsky’s recent photographs, produced across the African continent, the patterns and scars of human-altered landscapes initially appear to form an abstract, painterly language; they reference the sublime and often surreal qualities of human mark-making. While chronicling the major themes of terraforming and extraction, urbanization and deforestation, African Studies (external link, opens in new window) conveys the unsettling reality of sweeping resource depletion on both a human and industrial scale.
Jane
J.J. Johnson, Blair Powers and Christin Simms, Radio and Television Arts ’02, Sinking Ship Entertainment (external link, opens in new window)
Jane, a nine-year-old budding environmentalist, is on a quest to save endangered animals. Using her powerful imagination, Jane takes her best friends David and Greybeard the chimpanzee on epic adventures to help protect wild animals all around the world because, according to her idol, Dr. Jane Goodall (external link, opens in new window) (TMU Honorary Doctorate ’01): “Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help, can they be saved.”
Evolving Vegan
Images courtesy of Bell Media
Mena Massoud (external link) , Theatre Performance ’17
Mena Massoud, actor and cookbook author, travels across North America and eats his way through some of the coolest cities to show us how talented chefs and restaurateurs are making plant-based food delicious, beautiful and attainable. He explores the exploding vegan food scene in Mexico City, Los Angeles, Austin, Portland, Vancouver and Toronto, showing us just how mouth-watering plant-based food can be.
The Nature of Things
David Suzuki (external link, opens in new window) , Honorary Doctor of Science ’07
After 44 years, David Suzuki is retiring as host of The Nature of Things. In his final episode, he explores new ways of expressing his ideas, meets up with some neighbours, shows us how global problems are being expressed in his own backyard, and attempts to reconcile the two great influences in his life: science and Indigenous culture.
Image courtesy of CBC
The Language that Lies Between
The Language that Lies Between explores an improbable collaboration between Indigenous artists from opposite sides of the globe and the ways in which they discover connection to their respective lands and cultural traditions as they create a large-scale mural for TMU.
Brought together as part of Arctic/Amazon, a multi-year interdisciplinary project that tracks the various ways in which contemporary Indigenous artists integrate notions of spirituality, ancestral respect and traditional knowledge into their work, Niap (Nancy Saunders) and Olinda Reshinjabe evoke the rich imagery and iconography of their respective regions in creating a sprawling landscape piece that now sits at Gould St. and Nelson Mandela Walk.