This fall, Toronto’s Union Station invites commuters to pause and reflect with a striking new installation by an Indigenous artist that explores movement, identity, and belonging.
Opened in late September in the station’s historic West Wing, Winnipeg-based Anishinaabe-Ojibwe artist Dee Barsy’s soaring creation is now on display. Featuring digitally recreated paintings of abstract birds in mid-flight, the installation evokes themes of migration and belonging, a subtle but powerful connection between the physical and emotional journeys of both birds and humans.
“There’s many places that I call home, and whenever I travel for work, like for my art, I think it’s sort of like a temporary home,” Barsy explained to Now Toronto.
“And when I think about migration, I also think about migratory birds and like one species being in Winnipeg and then somehow making it all the way to Korea… then how they stop along the way and they contribute to the ecosystems that they land and call home for that short amount of time. As a human, as an Indigenous person, I’m trying my best to connect authentically with every space that I enter.”
Barsy, who was adopted into a non-Indigenous home, has roots in the Skownan First Nation community, and infuses her work with her personal story. Her traditional clan is the Eagle clan, which further inspired her to create a piece that reflected her own journey.
“I am supposed to give my love to everybody – to spread and share my love – and I do that through painting,” she said. “That’s how I began painting birds and developed a deep connection with birds and an interest in how they court, and what they provide in their environment. And then at the same time, that teaching that I received helped me get a better direction in my own life of how to conduct myself.”
For the thousands of commuters passing through the bustling station, she hopes that the project prompts viewers to consider not just where they’re going, but how they arrive, and what they carry with them.
“I think that I would like viewers to take one look, and then maybe at a different time, take a second look and figure out or reflect on what part of the artwork, or the entire exhibit that they’re entering into,” she said.
“Ask yourself ‘Why? Why did I choose this?’ That’s some of the feedback that I’ve heard from people in the past looking at my art, is that they love to look at my work, because every time they look at it, they focus on a different aspect of it, a different place.”
The installation is also designed to foster dialogue, community, and cultural engagement among Union Station’s more than 300,000 daily visitors. As part of this effort, Barsy is hosting a public meet-and-greet on Oct. 4 between 9 and 10 p.m, during the city’s overnight art showcase Nuit Blanche, inviting Torontonians to engage with the work and with each other.
The latest installation in the transport hub is an example of how art can offer not just beauty, but space to reflect, connect, and feel, Union Station spokesperson Alexa Polenz told Now Toronto.
“With any artwork that we do at Union. I really think it kind of allows people to kind of take a moment and just kind of stop and find connection, either in the piece or in something that’s happening in their own lives,” she said.
“I really feel that art has this capacity to kind of make you stop and think about things. It makes you kind of appreciate the beauty of life in a space where people are constantly in flux.”
The art exhibit is completely free and will be on display to the public until mid-November.
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