What to know
- A Kind of Order is a free public art exhibition opening Feb. 12 at Toronto’s Union Station for Black History Month.
- The multi-site show features work by Timothy Yanick Hunter, Aaron Jones, Thato Toeba and Hazelle Palmer.
- Curated by Joséphine Denis in partnership with BAND Gallery, the exhibition explores movement, migration and transformation through collage and mixed media.
- Installed across the West Wing, Oak Room, façade banners and lower-level storefronts, the exhibition invites commuters to engage with art in the midst of their daily journeys.
Toronto’s Union Station is launching a free public art exhibition for Black History Month this week, featuring the work of four Toronto artists.
Titled A Kind of Order, the multi-site exhibition sponsored by TD Bank Group opens on Thursday and brings together works by Timothy Yanick Hunter, Aaron Jones, Thato Toeba and Hazelle Palmer.
The works are intentionally installed across multiple locations in the station — the West Wing, Oak Room, façade banners and lower-level storefronts.
“No matter where you’re going, you’ll catch a little glimpse of some of the artwork,” Alexa Polenz, Union Station’s Manager of Brands and Partnerships emphasized.
Curated by Joséphine Denis, BAND GALLERY Co-Director and Director of Curatorial Initiatives, the installations explore movement, migration and transformation — all themes that resonate deeply within the city’s most bustling transit hub.
What can visitors expect at A Kind of Order?
Drawing inspiration from Dionne Brand’s novel What We All Long For, the exhibition of collages reframes the experience of being “in between” — between places, identities, or stages of life — as a generative space rather than a temporary inconvenience. Instead of rushing through, visitors are invited to pause, wander and reconsider their surroundings.
“For me, it was really exciting to think about Union’s specificity as a site, as a place that gathers and assembles people, but then also sends us on our way,” Denis told Now Toronto on Wednesday. “It’s a marker of a lot of different chapters, beginnings and endings, but it also marks people’s daily rhythms in Toronto and the greater areas.”
The usage of collage in the artwork operates as both method and metaphor throughout the showcase. Together, the artists assemble fragments of history, popular culture, memory and lived experience into layered compositions that mirror the station’s own rhythms of disruption and routine.
Artists say work is important all-year-round
In the West Wing, Hunter presents “Cross Section,” a combination of moving image, photography and archived work of soil, grain, dirt, sand and other biological items — something he refers to as “material investigation.”
“What I’m overall interested in conceptually is migration, the movement of people, but also the transferring of information between people, history, culture,” he explained.
While the exhibition opens during Black History Month, Hunter emphasizes that the work of racialized artists deserves attention and engagement year-round.
“I do believe that this work extends far beyond Black History Month, far beyond February,” he said. “Black artists in the city historically have been very important to the fabric of what Toronto or wider Canada is… I hope that people understand that — that the contributions that Black artists have to the art world and Canada are deeply important and deeply relevant.”
On the station’s exterior façade banners, Jones uses analog and digital collage to create bold, large-scale works, and inside the Oak Room, Toeba’s site-specific photomontage and cut-out sculptural forms examine how bodies and architecture choreograph movement through urban life.
Meanwhile, on the lower-level, Palmer’s collage paintings layer pattern, texture and figuration in richly coloured compositions.
Palmer says her work is typically featured in smaller, private galleries, and says she’s interested in witnessing how commuters in such a massive public space will engage with the art.
“It’s very different to see your work in such a public space, and rather than a gallery,” she laughed. “This is such wonderful exposure, and I hope people stop and take a look at the work and read a little bit about why this exhibit is so important.” she said.
“It’s very diverse and very different, but it’s great artwork, and it contributes to the culture of this city.”
A Kind of Order opens to the public on Feb. 12. and will be on display until August. For more information, visit Union Station’s website.
