Image arts duo documents the Port Lands renewal project

The Port Lands Flood Protection Project (external link) , an ambitious seven-year project by Waterfront Toronto that’s turning an underused industrial brownsite into a naturalized river valley, is now entering peak project phase, where the construction of a new river mouth is underway. Photographers Vid Ingelevics, professor emeritus at the School of Image Arts, and Ryan Walker, Documentary Media graduate and professor, have been on-site to capture it all for their project, How to Build a River (external link) .

Since 2019, Ingelevics and Walker have been collaborating on a five-year photographic commission for Waterfront Toronto to capture the project in all its stages. It is a significant undertaking and one of the largest civil works projects in North America, and runs from the lake west of Cherry Street to the Don Roadway and between Polson Street and Commissioners Road. 

Once completed, it will address the industrial mistakes of the past including excavating and treating or removing over 1 million cubic metres of contaminated soil from the Port Lands site, raising the land to provide substantial flood protection, creating new public spaces as well as aquatic and terrestrial habitats for wildlife. It’s a multifaceted seven-year project to which both artists have a deep personal connection in one way or another.

“The commission itself was very specific and called not for industrial photographers but artist/photographers to document and interpret the activities in the site,” says Ingelevics. “They were looking for a team to bring a bit more of an interpretive, self-reflexive and human connection to telling the story, rather than straightforward documentation and clinical photographs.”

Drawing on each other’s strengths

“By no means are we trying to tell the entire story of the Port Lands site - you would need a team of probably 20 or 30 people to do it because the size of it is almost unbelievable,” says Walker. But by focusing on each of their professional areas of interest, the duo (who met many years ago when Walker was completing his MFA in the documentary media program and worked as Ingelevics’ graduate assistant) are looking to tease out themes that will tell stories about how the city is addressing the past and looking ahead.

“We each bring something different to the table as artists: I'm focused on people and making portraits and Vid’s work surrounds the landscapes, the archives and the historical side of the work,” says Walker. “Looking back, three years into the project, we've pushed one another to become better photographers in each of those approaches to photographic storytelling.”

“My father used to work down there, and so did I in high school, at a place called Smith Transport which became CP transport,” says Ingelevics. “So I have this strange memory from long ago of what the site was like. The history of the site really interests me, because in a weird way, I'm part of it.”

Ingelevics says contextualizing the project is fascinating for him. “I've also been really interested in digging into the archives, and thinking about what we're doing at this moment through what happened in the past. And in this case, that's what the Port Lands Flood Protection is about: it's dealing with the mistakes of the past.”

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For Walker, the site brings back memories of urban exploration in gritty industrial sites as a young photographer. “But what really got me excited about the opportunity was interpreting the community building aspect of the project and how it was reshaping public space,” he says. “We realized quite early on how important a role our images will play. Art can create engaging public spaces that often attract a certain type of energy and people to that space.”

Creating the exhibitions

Each year for the last three years, Ingelevics and Walker have produced an exhibition with a selection of 11 images from the thousands they’ve taken on site around a theme or aspect of the larger project. This exploration of a specific theme allows them to tease out both the macro and micro elements of the project as the landscape evolves. 

“Because the project is long-term, we can riff off of themes that might connect to a wider audience beyond the actual construction,” says Walker. “For example, the human moments as well, which speak to our own sensibilities as artists.”

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Their latest exhibition, How to Build a River (external link) , is on display at the Villiers Street Median as part of the Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival until September 6, and focuses on the inventive environmental and bio-engineering techniques being used to construct a new mouth for the Don River. Their two previous exhibitions both focus on specific themes as well: Framework (external link)  was a collection of photographs taken on-site through windows and apertures of buildings since demolished, as well as other impermanent structures on the site. A Mobile Landscape (external link)  explored the movement and mounds of rocks, metals and dirt as natural sculpture.

“The site is constantly evolving, and as we look at what's happening, and as the beginnings of the excavation are starting to happen, we find the centrepiece of the whole project taking place: the new river is being built,” says Walker. 

And though the project is about fixing the mistakes of our past and addressing the climate challenges that are to come, Ingelevics sees a lot of hope in the project. “We can clearly see that there's a paradigm shift in society's priorities. We are starting to see the river valley taking shape and there's an incredible amount of birdlife coming here to reclaim the space. So it’s not simply a doom and gloom series.”

To learn more about Ryan Walker and Vid Ingelevics’ exhibition, How to Build a River, visit the Scotiabank Contact Photography Festival’s website (external link) .The images will be on display until September 6.

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• IMA faculty-alumni duo take the lead on five-year project for Waterfront Toronto