Aquariums of Toronto

Pierre-François Ouellette Art Contemporain at Centre Space, Toronto

December 3-24, 2016

A rapidly expanding global city, Toronto has lost biodiversity to growth. Pollution, overfishing, loss of habitat and other environmental problems that accompany development have significantly impacted ecosystems of Lake Ontario and other local waterways. Globalization also presents strange and accidental migrations of great consequence: the integration of the Great Lakes into global trade networks via the St. Lawrence Seaway inadvertently resulted in the introduction of invasive species—like the round goby and zebra mussel—into Toronto’s local underwater environment.

A stroll through downtown Toronto reveals a condensed form of the dislocation of aquatic life: the aquarium. This ubiquitous form of display appears in various guises – decorations for dentists’ offices or hotel lobbies, commodity presentations at pet stores of fishmongers, or entertainment and education at Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada (which lies less than a kilometer from the shores of Lake Ontario). In the logic of the aquarium, the plants’ and animals’ state of displacement is overcome in their aestheticization. In this way, the aquarium’s fantastical and alluring arrangements efface the realities of ecological crisis. This disquieting effacement of globalization and global warming, and particularly of Lake Ontario, is an essential concern for Aquariums of Toronto.