50/50 Garden of Resilience
24 May - October 2025
Organized by KWAG Curatorial + Public Programs Departments
The 50/50 Garden of Resilience is the newest addition to the KWAG Sculpture Garden. This hybrid model explores the model of the community garden as a platform for radical sustainability and mutual aid on a community level. In a place where 10% of our neighbor’s face food insecurity on an annual basis, the 50/50 Garden of Resilience will be a refuge of direct action, grounding the possibilities of small-scale, urban food production and community strength through intergenerational exchange and learning.
KWAG understands the garden as site, model and gallery. As a site, it is a functioning community garden that will grow organic fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers. As a model, it is a decolonial gesture that inverts capitalist expectations of land value and outdated conceptions of aesthetic value and landscaping. As a gallery, the garden will be regularly programmed, activated and cared for, just like our internal gallery spaces. KWAG seeks to learn from the Garden and understand how we can best position ourselves to care for our immediate neighbors and local ecologies.
We will also be launching a unique Gardener-in-Residence opportunity for a local artist to steward one of our plots for the summer. If you would like more information on this program and opportunities to get involved, please message Darryn Doull, Curator: Exhibitions & Programs, at ddoull@kwag.on.ca
Gardener-in-Residence
Stephanie Florence (they/them) is an emerging neurodiverse non-binary artist and curator collaborating with beings supported by the Willow Creek watershed—O:se Kenhionhata:tie. Florence produces artwork with humans, more-than-humans, salvaged materials, and the Land, resulting in narrative-based, site-specific, and public relational art interventions. By “listening” to the stories of Mycelia, Moss, and Dandelions, they find respite and growth. Florence completed an MFA at the University of Waterloo in 2023 where they received SSHRC funding. They have received 9 production grants and their artwork has travelled to 11 cities across Canada. Florence led 2 dynamic years of curation for the SkirtsAfire Festival that resulted in the publication of COVID COLLECTIONS. In 2021, Florence completed the Yorath House Studio residency, found a permanent home for The Human Wheel at the Lowlands Project Space, and collaborated with Norwegian collectives—LOCUS and LATERNA—in Oslo, Norway. Currently, they are collaborating with PRAKSIS—a Norwegian transnational NGO—for two residencies in Bali and Lofoten, resulting in a solo exhibition in Oslo (2026). Florence’s collaborative performance project called the Monster Pageant will debut in deSpectacle and Lumen Festival (2025). They co-founded—CARBON—a national interdisciplinary arts collective, and are building Solo-pollinator Homes for community gardens with local organizations, such as the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery and rare Charitable Research Reserve.
For inquiries and additional details, please contact garden@kwag.on.ca.
RELATED PROGRAMS:
Botanical Scents and Poetic Murmurs
Saturday, 19 July,
11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Free | Ages 12
Artist Talk + Sounds and Movement of the Land
Saturday, 16 August,
12:00 to 2:00 p.m.
Free | All ages
Official Garden Launch Celebration
Saturday, 24 May, 12:00 p.m.
Celebrate the first full day of gardening and activation of the Garden of Resilience during our launch weekend!
50/50 Garden of Resilience Weekend Activities
Saturday, 24 May 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.
All ages | Free
Food Drive + Seedling Exchange
Saturday, 24 May 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Cyanotype Tote Bag Workshop
Saturday, 24 May 1:30 - 2:30 p.m
All ages | $20 plus HST
Couzyn van Heuvelen: CAMP | Reception + Tour
Saturday, 24 May
Reception: 2:00 p.m.
Exhibition Tour: 2:30 p.m.
Publication Launch for Billy Gauthier: Sila
Sunday, 25 May, 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.
Summer Style Swap!
Sunday, 25 May 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.
50/50 Garden of Resilience Weekend Activities
Sunday, 25 May 1:00 - 4:00 p.m.
All ages | Free
Flower Pounding Tote Bag Workshop
Sunday, 25 May 1:30 - 2:30 p.m
All ages | $20 plus HST
The 50/50 Garden of Resilience weekend celebrations are sponsored by
Images: Feature and header, 50/50 Garden of Resilience, 2025. Photo by KWAG.
The 50/50 Garden of Resilience is funded by the TD Friends of the Environment Foundation and WRCF’s Community Grants program.
