of sustenance (heartening, ever-reaching, embraces between dawn and dusk)

of sustenance (heartening, ever-reaching, embraces between dawn and dusk) is a multi-sectional installation comprised of abstracted botanical vinyl drawings installed on eight glass shelters on the Milbourne/​Woodvale LRT line. After many conversations with community members familiar with the use of the LRT stations, as well as participating in the land based teaching with Dr. Dwayne Donald, artist Marigold Santos settled upon making work that revolved around how food systems bring communities together. Acknowledging what grows naturally in Treaty 6 territory, specifically in amiskwacîwâskahikan, Stantos created four groupings of drawings, based on the flowers, leaves, stems, and fruit of the gooseberry plant, the highbush cranberry plant, the chokecherry plant, and the saskatoon berry plant. Studying the different parts of these plants and highlighting their specific characteristics allowed the artist to create winding and interconnected designs that speak of growth, tenderness, beauty, nourishment, and community. The ongoing ability of these plants to provide sustenance over many generations of the past, the present, and into the future, create a perennial strengthening of body, mind, and spirit, that encourages us to remember and honour the land and the natural world around us. To be surrounded by these steadfast plants portrayed in a spectrum of colors inspired by the transition of light in the sky, my hope is for these shelters to contribute a sense of gratitude and care for the land of which we commute on, we work on, and live on.