I Am Lucie, I Am Thornton

I Am Lucie, I Am Thornton is a STEPS CreateSpace public art activation by artist-in-residence Charmaine Lurch, in partnership with Inner City Angels and the Toronto District School Board. This project celebrates the Blackburn’s lived experience on the land, their activism, and contributions to Toronto, and involves a performance in Fall 2021 and a sculptural installation in Spring 2022. 

I am Lucie, I am Thornton involves both installation and performance art as outdoor public art. These art forms intertwine space and time and are in relation to the audience and the landscape. 

The historical inspiration behind this project revolves around the Blackburns, celebrated Canadian nation builders. In 1837 Thornton and Lucie Blackburn started Toronto’s first cab company. Black entrepreneurs and vocal anti-oppression activists, the Blackburns were pillars of their community, formerly known as the Ward. They used their multiple properties to house those escaping the horrors of slavery, their Sackville St. home a site on the Underground Railroad. Having escaped slavery in the US themselves, the Blackburns devoted their lives to movement, to community and to each other. Working within the site but outside of the historical framework, I am Lucie I am Thornton will bring a new kind of movement to the history of the Blackburns. It will offer a way to visualize the liminal space between the concrete archive and intangible memories, a rich public archive and a public record of movement. The landscape will once again house a structure for gathering and validating Black geographies. I am Lucie I am Thornton hopes to make it unimaginable to think of York/Toronto’s past without the presence of Indigenous/Black people.

Land Acknowledgement

I Am Lucie, I Am Thornton is a performance and installation piece that takes place on the ancestral lands of the Anishnaabe, Wendat Nations, the Mississaugas of the Credit and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, who have stewarded and cared for the land for over 15,000 years. As a guest, viewer or settler, reading and putting into practice the 94 Calls to action by Truth and Reconciliation are an essential part of upholding the treaties and the fairness and justice that has been long denied to the Indigenous peoples of Canada.

COVID-19 Guidelines

This performance is a no-contact outdoor activity and complies with the TDSB and Toronto Public Health's current guidelines.

Please follow the information on the Covid-19 self-assessment link. 

The CreateSpace Residency is made possible by support from TD Bank Group through the TD Ready Commitment, the City of Toronto as part of ArtworxTO: Toronto's Year of Public Art 2021 – 2022, Partners in Art, MAWA, and funding provided by the Government of Ontario.