Project — Public Art Installation – on the edge of routine; or of sand, silt, and clay ii
Effective Dates:
Jun 23, 2026 — On-going
Supported with funding from the Government of Canada and in partnership with Studio for Contemporary Art, Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism is making interior improvements to and completing an accessible front ramp for our facilities. During this time, we are presenting a Public Art Installation along the front of our makerspace, while entry will occur through our back lot – accessed through Ross Street. We hope to complete exterior improvements during 2026, and interior improvements shortly thereafter. Below are details about the installation, as well as a link to watch saysah’s film.
ARTIST STATEMENT
‘on the edge of routine; or of sand, silt, and clay ii’ (2026) is a reworked iteration of a multisensorial-scape that moves through the interconnection of waterways, clay and bodies as sites of memory, ritual and transformation.
Grounded in Toni Morrison’s reflection that “all water has a perfect memory, and is forever trying to get back to where it was” the symbolism of water emerges as both archive and witness, carrying Black-Atlantic diasporic memory, grief, survival, and return across time. Like raw clay, memory can be broken apart and reformed.
The piece draws on the submerged history of Russell Creek, an “invisible river” buried beneath Toronto’s urban infrastructure. The Creek was named after Peter Russell, an early colonial administrator and slave owner, whose role in shaping colonial Toronto remains largely absent from dominant public memory.
Though hidden underground, this Creek continues to flow beneath the neighbourhoods where the Wildseed Centre for Art & Activism is nestled within; mirroring the enduring presence of refusal, labour and resistance of Black life in Toronto, despite systemic institutional forgetting.
Through gestures of gathering, carrying, dissolving, and reforming, the piece creates a living ceremonial language where movement and sediment become offerings toward collective embodied-altars for collective and ancestral connection, reverence, and remembrance.
This installation invites community members into reflections on routines and practices of re-membering; listening closely to what still moves beneath the surface to in communion with forces both seen and unseen.
BIOS
saysah is a multidisciplinary artist who weaves together different forms of expression, all guided by sensory exploration. Their practice is rooted in the following intersections:
- movement: ritual-theatre, performance and dance
- mixed media: collage, weaving and paper mache
- design: projection, video and sound
- co-creation: community arts, public art, archive and interactive-installations.
saysah lives as a queer Black diasporic person of Kittian and Arsi Oromo ancestry, who is trying to be in right relationship with their body and the more-than-human world. They are based in Tkaronto, which is Treaty 13 territory and is the land of Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island since time immemorial. They are, because of the communities they belong to. Their focus is one of mulling over the layers of embodied knowledge systems and re-membering what has been left for us.
saysah’s practice is deeply informed by the land and waterways as vital teachers and collaborators. saysah honours these guides by moving with an embodied commitment to reciprocity and collective care.
Habiba Hisham Born in Cairo and based in Tkaronto, Habiba is a social science grad turned graphic
designer. Dabbling with illustration, photography, collage and comics; she aspires to create research-based visual stories with community, towards social change.
