The Creative School doctoral student presents confluence: the making of home in Toronto

In a recent announcement by ART+PUBLIC UnLtd (external link) , a boutique public art consultancy based in Toronto, the TTC Board of Directors has approved the jury recommendations for five public artwork installations along the TTC Bloor Line. Among the artworks selected for realisation is confluence, a project conceptualised by Media & Design Innovation PhD student Francisco-Fernando Granados in collaboration with architect Kurt Kraler. The artwork will be brought to life at the Cumberland Street entrance of Bay Station, welcoming commuters with an immersive mosaic experience like no other.

Inspired by Granados’ experience as a refugee coming to Canada from Guatemala in 2001, the proposed mosaic work spanning the walls and ceiling is a meditation on the past, present, and future of the city as a place where people from many nations arrive to find new forms of belonging: confluence is a site-specific translation of one of Granados’ abstract digital drawings that draws on themes of inclusion and the making of home in the city of Toronto.

“I came to Canada as a refugee claimant from Guatemala when I was a teenager,” says Granados. “My family and I settled on the other side of the country. Watching the city from there, Toronto always seemed like a place of convergence for people and ideas. A city that was charged and complex. A place where being queer or a migrant was not strange, but simply part of the reality and history of the place.”

Creating a sense of belonging 

Granados has spent the last 15 years shaping his career as a multidisciplinary artist and has seen considerable success with his exhibitions that have been viewed across the country. Looking to advance his career, his practice would eventually lead him to pursue a PhD in Media and Design Innovation at The Creative School, where he continues to shape his professional portfolio as an artist and educator.

“I was at a point in my practice as an artist where I wanted time and space to reflect on what kind of knowledge my practice might have generated after more than 15 years of working professionally. I learned about the recently-created MDI program and felt that it was worth learning more about. I was really interested in the focus on practice and the exciting interdisciplinary nature of the program,” stated Granados.

This experience played an informative role while deciding which of his works he’d put forward for this public project, and he couldn’t think of anything better than confluence: an abstract composition that encourages reflection.

“My hope is for the piece to inspire moments of reflection on the intersections between the bodies, the landscape, and the architecture of our city as we negotiate sharing space and the building of community here,” states Granados. “There's an intense beauty in the experience of living in Toronto that I hope the viewers recognize in the work.”

Art for the public, by the public 

Spanning the walls and ceiling of the Cumberland Street entrance, Granados specifically chose confluence to be part of the Bay Station where the subway station converges with the outside world. In this way, the artwork serves as a welcoming gesture for commuters buzzing around the city.

While Granados has worked on many temporary public art projects in the last decade, confluence will be his first permanent public work, presenting itself with some unique but exciting challenges that required new ways of thinking and doing.

“The main way of addressing this new way of working was to spend time at the station, observing the space, the people, and how they move through it,” says Granados. “I made a commitment to spend time at the station throughout last summer as my collaborator Kurt Kraler and I were working on the proposal. He is an architect and created a series of drawings of the site, which allowed us to figure out how to best translate one of my abstract compositions into a proposal for a mural for that entrance.”

A confluence of cultures, aspirations and dreams

Living close to campus since 2015, Granados has embedded his life and practice into the fabric of Toronto, and while he doesn’t deny the issues the city has, he’s grateful for the opportunities it has provided. He also hopes his work will inspire others to see the city of Toronto the way he does: as a bustling, thriving and, at times, hectic gathering place of people and ideas.

“I wanted to honour and express gratitude to the history of this land as a meeting place that goes further back than Canada itself, and to offer this work as somebody who has arrived here and found belonging.”

confluence highlights the transformative power of art in fostering dialogue, bridging divides, and nurturing a shared sense of belonging within the heart of the city. A belonging that embodies the very essence of Toronto—a confluence of cultures, aspirations, and dreams, converging to create a vibrant mosaic that he’s proud to call home.

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