art	has arrived at the toronto zoo the toronto zooarts festival at the toronto zoo, from tuesday june 29 to thursday september 30, 2004

Looking to add a little art to your life? From Tuesday, June 29 to Thursday, Sept 30, Toronto zooarts showcases art exhibits at the Toronto Zoo. Experience some interesting sculptures, unusual textile exhibits, unexpected visual arts displays, and more. The Toronto zooarts Festival explores the relationship between art, wildlife, and the environment. Pick up a Toronto Zoo Visitor's Guide and zooarts Festival Brochure at the Zoo Entrance for more detailed information about the artists and their work.

The first stop on your Toronto zooarts tour is located just inside the Zoo Entrance in the Courtyard area. Look more closely at the trees and you will see Janet Morton’s Early Frost. Her tree coverings are made of hand crocheted cotton lace table cloths and doilies found at second hand stores and similar sources.

Also in the Courtyard area, you will see a large sculpture by Canadian artist, Joe Fafard: Obilix is a cast bronze and patina bull calmly standing watch over the busy comings and goings of the Zoo Entrance. The patina surface, unlike paint, uses several interactive, chemical processes to selectively and permanently alter the natural bronze colour.

The next stop on your Toronto zooarts tour is in front of the Indian Rhinoceros building, where you will find The Only Glossy Blossom Tree by Karen Azoulay. The exhibit features sculptured fantasy plant forms, such as berry clusters, tropical flowers and dangling vines fabricated from textiles, ribbons, paper, plastic, and found objects. The Only Glossy Blossom Tree is dense, detailed, and full of whimsy.

In front of the Indian Rhinoceros’ house, you will find Balaclava for a Rhino, hand knit for Indira the Rhino by Janet Morton. Although created to fit the animals they are knitted for, Janet’s Animal Apparel series is not intended to be worn, but to playfully ask questions about the way we assert our sense of style and aesthetics onto the natural world. Just a little farther down the road, in the Indo-Malaya Pavilion, you will notice another Janet Morton design: Puppe the Sumatran Orangutan has a colourful new pullover.

Continue in the direction of the African Savanna, and you can’t miss more of Janet Morton’s whimsical hand knit pieces. A pair of gloves will help keep Charles the Lowland Gorilla warm in our cold Canadian winters, and in the Elephant exhibit, Patsy the Elephant just loves her new work socks!

If you enter through the northern entrance to Kesho Park in the African Savanna, you will find the Masai Giraffe area, and two more exhibits on your Toronto zooarts tour. In front of the Giraffes, don’t miss Janet’s Cardigan. This sweater for Twiga the Giraffe is hand knit in black and blue acrylic wool, with almost 100 buttons to fit Twiga’s looooooong neck!

And right across from the Giraffe exhibit, at the Zoomobile stop, you won’t be able to miss Serpentine Mounds by Ian Lazarus and Badanna Zack! This large sculpture is a 92 meter (300 feet) long installation composed of obsolete cars, earth, and ground cover. The effect appears as a revealed archaeological site embedded in the natural landscape, and portrays the continuing battle between our love affair with the car, the roads and resources that are built to sustain it, and the environmental damage caused to animals (including humans!) and their habitats.

Our next stop on the Toronto zooarts tour is in the Americas area, where, in the underwater viewing area of the Polar Bear exhibit, you will find Flow by Jeff Winch. This magical installation features three video windows projected beside the underwater viewing area windows, creating the impression that humans and polar bears are swimming in the same pool. Both playful and surreal, the work is a celebration of human and animal diversity, interaction, and movement. Also in the Americas area, near the Polar Bear exhibit, you will find a second sculpture by Joe Fafard, Valentina, a young, standing colt.

One last exhibit you won’t want to miss is Mobile Fun by Dutch artist John Körmeling, a large ferris wheel with a twist: four cars are hoisted in the air for a bird’s eye view of Lake Ontario and the surrounding area. Mobile Fun is part of a larger exhibition of Körmeling’s work, presented at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre from June 3 to August 8.

Toronto zooarts and artists gratefully acknowledge the support of the following organizations: Toronto Zoo LiveARTs; Nataley Nagy, Executive Director, The Textile Museum of Canada; Noel Harding, artist (Noel Harding Studio); City of Toronto Solid Waste Management; Standard Auto Wreckers; Terrafix Environmental Technology Inc; and The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery at Harbourfront Centre.